CA - ‘Another attempt to industrialize the coast’: California’s Central Coast residents work to stop — or at least slow down — offshore wind
Massive ocean wind farms off Morro Bay and Santa Barbara County face a turbulent path.
MORRO BAY — Joey Racano used to have a dining room table. Now the sunlit nook off the family kitchen more often than not serves as a conference room. The table is covered with maps, thick binders bulging with tech reports, towers of meeting minutes, abandoned coffee mugs — the accumulation of years of community vigilance.
On this day, his home is a lively place where a handful of locals are discussing one of California’s most complex and audacious initiatives — loading the Pacific Ocean with sprawling wind farms that float 20 miles from shore.
To some, it’s an exciting endeavor that will power California’s carbon-free electricity grid of the future. To others, including the people around the table, the construction of untried technology off the coast carries too many risks and unknowns.
“This is just another attempt to industrialize the coast,” said Rachel Wilson, who lives in Cayucos, a tiny, old-fashioned beach town, and regularly attends public meetings about the wind projects. “I can just see Port Hueneme with cranes and lights and a huge wharf in my charming little coastal community. No way.”
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‘A massive enterprise’: California’s offshore wind farms are on a fast track
ABC10.com KXTV / October 16, 2023
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Last December, the federal government offered its first-ever wind energy leases off the California coast, concluding with five companies leasing deep ocean waters off the Central Coast and Humboldt/Del Norte counties. Included are 376 square miles that will hold three massive floating wind farms off Morro Bay, each with perhaps 50 or more turbines that will tower about 900 feet above the surface of the ocean. In addition, a developer has proposed a much smaller demonstration project of four turbines in state waters 2.8 miles off Santa Barbara County.
Local officials in Humboldt are hopeful that wind farms will boost their economy, although they are wary of the impacts and the accelerated pace. But the mood is different along the Central Coast: In Morro Bay and neighboring areas, some people are trying to stop the projects — or at least slow them down — until more can be understood about how the offshore wind industry might alter a place they cherish.
“I can just see Port Hueneme with cranes and lights and a huge wharf in my charming little coastal community. No way.” Rachel Wilson, Cayucos resident
The coastal economy here is largely dependent on lonely beaches and bluffs where vacationers flock to swim in quiet coves, look for migrating humpback whales and watch piles of corpulent elephant seals wrestle or snore. Main streets have remained as visitors remember them from their childhoods.
The region has a history of environmental awakening, and its residents have the energy to write letters, attend public meetings and challenge development they view as incompatible with the Central Coast vibe.
If the group of neighbors gathered around Racano’s table in Los Osos is any indication, the area is not in a mood to embrace the change.
But ready or not, change is coming. From Monterey to Morro Bay and beyond, the Central Coast in the next decade will become a vital link in the state’s shift to 100% carbon-free energy.
First of its kind, the floating wind technology carries a host of unknowns, including how the projects will affect marine life, especially whales. The projects off Morro Bay will bring with them onshore development, but exactly how it will all come together is still to be determined. Building and operating them and bringing the power to shore will require a new, expanded port somewhere along the coast, as well as offshore and onshore local substations and transmission lines.
The waters off the Central Coast are among the Pacific Ocean’s most biologically rich and diverse, where warm water from the south collides with cooler water from the north, a mashup that biologists say creates one of the rarest and most distinct marine areas in the world.
Accessible from the teeming bustle of Southern California and the searing heat of the Central Valley, this quiet coast draws throngs of tourists year-round: San Luis Obispo County alone hosted 7.5 million visitors last year.
