Crab pots lie empty, boats idled as toxic algae stalls a San Francisco tradition
It was quiet on Pier 45. Crab pots were stacked neatly in rows. Idled fishing vessels bobbed at their berths. One of the few dock workers present made small talk on his cellphone. Another puttered by on an empty forklift.It was just after dawn on a recent weekday. Larry Collins, a veteran of San Francisco's crab industry, sat in his small shed of an office in a wharf warehouse and made note of the absence of activity at what should have been the frenetic advent of another San Francisco Dungeness crab season."There's nothing going on right now," Collins said. "Nobody's working. By now, we would be bustling here. Working until midnight. Every night working on our boats. Forklifts moving product. Everybody would be working. Now, nobody's working."The pause in the crab season can be traced to a toxic algae that is rare to the coastal waters outside San Francisco Bay but bloomed this year amid rising ocean temperatures. The algae produces a neurotoxin, domoic acid, that doesn't faze crabs, but can sicken and even kill humans.Acting on a state health advisory, the Department of California Fish and Wildlife has suspended indefinitely the commercial and recreational Dungeness crab seasons, which traditionally open in mid-November.Weekly tests on crab samples have showed reductions in domoic acid levels in some stretches offshore. Still, not enough improvement has been made to open the season.This has left Collins and others who catch, market, cook and consume what in San Francisco is a celebrated birthright foodstuff all caught in a state of crustaceous interruptus. Thanksgiving is gone. Christmas is going. Maybe by New Year's, goes the optimists' new mantra."Crab here is like a religion," said Collins, a 58-year-old walrus of a man who fished out of San Francisco with his wife for more than three decades. A younger man now operates Collins' 46-foot vessel, the Autumn Gale.His time is occupied running the Crab Boat Owners Assn., along with building up a fishing cooperative that allows members to market their catches more directly, eliminating some middle links in the economic food chain.Collins and other wharf denizens paint the opening of crab seasons past as a festival, with widows of fishermen tossing wreaths into the water, a priest blessing the fleet and vessels racing to be the first to return to the docks with crabs."When a crab boat came in," said Angela Cincotta, a fourth-generation proprietor at the Alioto-Lazio Fish Co., "you would see people running from three blocks away just to see the boat unload."Not this season, she said: "There is no buzz on the street, no people, no excitement."Restaurants that typically order crabs by the thousands still call for the Alaskan crabs she keeps live in a tank. But they only want one or two. And given all the public discussion of domoic acid here, Cincotta said, some of her customers seem wary of eating any fish caught in Pacific waters.Like many San Franciscans, Collins and his companions in the fish trade have absorbed wave after wave of change, a transformation of what once was a working city into a pricey hybrid enclave for tourists and new money types from Silicon Valley who can afford rents that have climbed halfway to the stars and beyond.Collins remembers when the Fisherman's Wharf district was filled with machine shops that turned out custom replacement parts for the fleet. Today it might be tough to replace a broken water pump — but scoring a souvenir T-shirt or renting a Segway is a cinch."This was a small town," he said. "We have lost a lot of that. Now it's all techies with a lot of money."Even before this season's suspension, the coastal fishing fleet up and down California had been challenged by diminished fish counts, heightened regulation and related economic challenges."We've gone in my 30 years from 5,000 boats to 500," Collins said. "It's not a pretty picture."He blamed increasing diversion of water over time for agriculture and urban populations, water that otherwise would flow from the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, through the Delta and San Francisco Bay, and into the Pacific."You need the flows, you absolutely need the flows," he said of water captured before it can complete its natural course to the sea. "It's not wasted water. This is a whole ecosystem, a delicate ecosystem, and we have managed to screw it up. Thirty years ago, the catches were huge compared to now. Everybody wants to develop. They call it progress. That's not progress."And yet for all the economic misery brought on by historic trends in general, and by a suspended crab season in particular, Collins and his colleagues are in no rush to harvest crabs this winter. They understand that losing public faith in the safety of their seafood would be a much bigger and lasting blow."We are not like the beef industry," Collins said. "We don't do recalls."It is good that patience is hard-wired into those who fish, for fun or commerce. In fact, the only allies California crabbers can count on now, like Tolstoy's old general in "War and Peace," are patience and time.Warming water created the algae bloom and cooling water will erase it."Mother Nature bats first and last in this one," Collins said. "Just like it always does."For now, all he and other acolytes of the San Francisco Dungeness crab can do for now is wait. That the waiting is necessary does not make it any easier.
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Record-breaking Sea Levels in California
MEMORANDUMRe: Record-breaking Sea Levels in CaliforniaFrom: Abe Doherty, Climate Change Policy Advisor, California Ocean Protection CouncilDate: December 3, 2015
California broke a record late last month: Sea levels at several tide stations in Southern California reached higher elevations than ever measured before, including during major storms. Water levels were higher than the “King Tides” that were predicted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), due to the ongoing El Niño, warm ocean temperatures and a minor storm. NOAA observations for San Diego, La Jolla and Santa Barbara show sea levels for November 25, 2015 higher than the maximum water levels ever recorded at these tide stations. The San Diego tide station has been recording sea levels since 1906, La Jolla since 1924 and Santa Barbara since 1974. San Diego experienced street flooding several miles inland when ocean water surged into the storm drain system.During the past two years along the West Coast, surface waters have been unusually warm, which has contributed to higher coastal water levels. For example, the temperatures at the Santa Cruz wharf were as much as 9 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than normal, which is greater than the 1997-1998 El Niño. These warm ocean waters and other regional processes have caused an increase in water levels of an additional few inches of higher water levels beyond what was experienced during past strong El Niños. Sea levels recently have been up to a foot higher than expected. These elevated water levels are on top of the long term sea level rise trends that have occurred due to climate change, such as the eight inches of sea level rise that has been documented over the last century at the San Francisco tide station.The current El Niño also has broken a record for one indicator of strength of El Niño conditions based on sea surface temperatures near the equator. Past strong El Niños in 1982-83 and 1997-98 produced 6 to 10 inches of elevated sea levels that persisted from fall until late spring and then became elevated again the following summer through fall. Winter storms during these past strong El Niños caused peak water levels of 1.5 to 3 feet above predicted levels, with high waves, storm surges and heavy precipitation resulting in disaster declarations for flooding in coastal counties. It is only prudent to assume that the current strong El Niño conditions could bring similar trouble.Climate disruption is amplifying extreme events that threaten the health and safety of families and communities in California and around the world.Scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s leading body on climate change assessment, tell us that climate change increases the intensity of drought, wildfire, and flooding. California recently earned an “A” grade in a national assessment of state efforts to prepare for climate change, and there is a lot of great work and collaboration happening at all levels in California to address sea-level rise. But the amount of sea-level rise will make a big difference in the success of our efforts to adapt. The State of California Sea-level Rise Guidance Document projects up to five and a half feet of sea-level rise by 2100. However, carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere have surpassed 400 parts per million. Scientists report that the last time the Earth had such levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, several million years ago, sea levels were more than twenty feet higher than current levels. The potential for sea-level rise greater than we now project is one of many reasons Californians take strong action to combat climate change.Beyond adapting governance to an epoch of changing shoreline conditions, we also must be ready for floods, mudslides and coastal erosion during the current strong El Niño conditions. California state agencies have been working with emergency responders and local governments to prepare.See www.climatechange.ca.gov for more information on California’s actions on climate.See www.storms.ca.gov for information on preparedness for storm impacts.See the California Ocean Protection Council website on El Niño for more information on elevated sea levels.
Sour talk as lawmakers, crabbers meet over Dungeness shutdown
In this photo taken Thursday, Nov. 12, 2015, crab pots fill a large section of a parking lot at Pillar Point Harbor in Half Moon Bay, Calif. California delayed the Nov. 15 start of its commercial crab season after finding dangerous levels of a toxin in crabs. Photo: Eric Risberg, Associated Press
Lawmakers joined scientists and fearful crabbers in an unusual meeting Thursday to fret over the continued closure of the Dungeness and rock crab fishing seasons, a major economic blow to the state that experts say could be just the beginning of ocean ecosystem trouble.The legislative hearing by the Joint Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture was held in Santa Rosa to go over the financial impacts, public health issues and ocean conditions behind the recent shutdown of the recreational and commercial crab seasons.
The commercial fishery, which brings in from $60 million to $95 million a year, was closed before the scheduled opening on Nov. 15 after testing of crab by health officials showed toxic levels of domoic acid, a neurotoxin known to cause seizures, coma and even death when consumed by animals or humans.The meeting, hosted by state Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, was an attempt to give people information and hope that the beloved, historic crab fishing industry might eventually be restored. But most of the information given out was decidedly grim.“This is a situation that is causing real harm to people we care about at our department ... but public health and safety has to come first,” said Charlton Bonham, the director of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. “I’m intent on our department doing whatever it takes to get seasons open as soon as Mother Nature allows it.”Recent crab samples indicate that the situation is improving, with domoic acid levels in Half Moon Bay, San Francisco and Morro Bay coming out clean. But the health advisory cannot be lifted until all samples collected from the entire region show safe levels of domoic acid for two weeks in a row.Samples in Monterey and the northern part of the state, including Fort Bragg and Bodega Bay, are still showing high levels, according to the California Department of Public Health.The problem is that poisonous algae known as pseudo-nitzschia has been multiplying in the ocean since April. It grew dramatically through August and has infected numerous marine species in addition to crab. Blooms have been estimated to be 40 miles wide, the biggest and most toxic bloom collectively that researchers have ever seen.Domoic acid concentrations in Monterey Bay have measured 10 to 30 times the level considered toxic. Levels of 30 parts per million in the viscera and 20 parts per million in the meat of crabs are considered unsafe to eat, according to health officials.This year, crab with domoic acid levels of 240 parts per million have not been unusual. One sample in the Channel Islands tested at 1,000 parts per million.“It’s really like nothing we’ve ever seen before,” said Eric Sklar, a member of the California Fish and Game Commission. “This really is unprecedented and it’s important to remember that.”Experts say the chief cause of the toxic blooms is consistently high ocean temperatures caused by climate aberrations that are being reinforced by a strengthening El Niño weather pattern in the tropics.The waters off the West Coast have been as high as 6 degrees warmer than normal. The anomaly began a couple of years ago when the wall of atmospheric pressure over the Pacific that blocked storms from hitting California — and kicked off the drought — also kept cold, stormy air from stirring the ocean and moderating water temperatures.“Ocean conditions are changing and they are changing fast,” said Sklar, who urged legislators to seek more funding for research. “I really look at this as a shot across the bow. We are going to see this more and more.”Cat Kuhlman, executive director of the Ocean Protection Council, said the El Niño is not expected to alleviate the huge fluctuations in ocean temperatures, animal deaths and mass migrations of marine species, which she called the “new normal.”“It’s highly likely we will have more of these algal blooms under any scenario,” said Kuhlman, who is also deputy secretary of ocean and coastal policy for the California Natural Resources Agency. “All of a sudden we’re seeing these really large fluctuations and we’re going to need to respond to that.”The biggest fear expressed during Thursday’s hearing was the possibility that the crab fishery might not open at all this season. That would be a devastating blow for fishers, who have already been hurt by a poor salmon season this year that yielded one-third of the average harvest.A California congressional delegation recently urged Gov. Jerry Brown to be ready to ask the U.S. Secretary of Commerce to declare a state of disaster if the season doesn’t open, a move that would free up federal aid for crabbers.Joe Caito, the president of Caito Fisheries, which processes millions of pounds of crab a year from Eureka, Fort Bragg and San Francisco, said the fishery closure has harmed even frozen crab sales, with clubs and other groups canceling annual crab feeds up and down the coast.“The industry has already lost its Thanksgiving holiday sales. We may lose the rest of the year,” Caito said. “Without the volume sales our profits are going to be compromised, our employees aren’t going to get a paycheck and we just can’t make up the sales.”Caito said things aren‘t likely to get a whole lot better even if crab season opens.“We need to gain back consumer confidence in order to get people to buy crab,” he said.
Angela Cincotta holds a fresh Dungeness crab imported from Washington state at the Alioto-Lazio Fish Company on Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco, Calif. on Friday, Nov. 20, 2015. Recent tests indicate that domoic acid in Dungeness crab have dropped to acceptable levels but it will still take a little while longer to lift the ban on the local crabbing season. Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle
Jorge Cham (left) and Jose Hoil peddle Dungeness crab imported from Washington state to tourists walking past Nick’s Lighthouse restaurant on Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco, Calif. on Friday, Nov. 20, 2015. Recent tests indicate that domoic acid in Dungeness crab have dropped to acceptable levels but it will still take a little while longer to lift the ban on the local crabbing season. Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle
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CWPA News Release: Council action on northern anchovy
November 16, 2015Contact: Diane Pleschner-Steele(805) 693-5430diane@californiawetfish.org
COUNCIL ACTION TAKES SCIENTIFIC APPROACH TO ANCHOVY MANAGEMENT
On Sunday November 15, the Pacific Fishery Management Council received a presentation from the Southwest Fishery Science Center, stating that recent year field surveys, particularly in 2015, have documented record abundance of eggs and juvenile anchovies along the entire west coast. The Center also signaled their intent to conduct a stock assessment in 2016, preceded by a scientific workshop to determine the best method to assess anchovy fluctuations, as recommended by the Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC). The management team and advisory subpanel supported this stepwise scientific approach, noting that even though anchovy landings ticked upward in 2015, the small fishery in Monterey was well below harvest limits, and recent surveys signaling significant new recruitment were optimistic signs of increased abundance.
Environmental activists, while pleased with news of the upcoming stock assessment, pleaded for the Council to establish interim measures in the meantime, using the “point of .concern” framework built into the CPS management plan to reduce the harvest limit, which would likely close the fishery until the stock assessment was completed. Public testimony concluded with statements from several fishermen from Monterey and southern California, along with two spotter pilots, who testified to the amazing abundance of anchovy they have witnessed in recent years. In addition to Monterey fishermen who have fished anchovies for 50 years, Corbin Hanson, a southern California fisherman who saw literally miles of anchovies along the central coast when he drove his vessel from southern California to Monterey this summer, testified: “Anchovies are probably the most abundant fish in our waters! I spend the majority of my time fishing these waters and can testify to this fact.”
The Council deliberated on the anchovy issue on Monday morning, November 16. They ultimately decided to proceed with the stepwise approach supported by the management team, advisory subpanel and the SSC. This will assure that recent year data will be incorporated into the stock assessment. The Council also asked the CPS management team to analyze various options for active management.
This analysis will require significant work, and the Department of Fish and Wildlife will need to age the backlog of anchovy samples in time for the workshop next spring. However, this scientific approach is the best approach to quantify the current abundance of anchovy, and will lead to a new assessment that will benefit both the ecosystem and the fishing community. California anchovy fishermen and processors appreciate the consideration that Council members gave to fishermen’s testimony. “Even though landings are small, the anchovy fishery is very important to Monterey’s wetfish industry,” says Diane Pleschner-Steele, executive director of the non-profit California Wetfish Producers Association. “We all thank the Council for using science, not politics, in its decision. Council members recognized that a sound management decision requires that all evidence of recent anchovy recruitment be considered.”
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El Niño could be the most powerful on record, scientists say
A key location of the Pacific Ocean is now hotter than recorded in at least 25 years, surpassing the temperatures during the record 1997 El Niño.Some scientists say their measurements show that this year’s El Niño could be among the most powerful on record -- and even toppling the 1997 event from its pedestal.“This thing is still growing and it’s definitely warmer than it was in 1997,” said Bill Patzert, climatologist with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge. As far as the temperature readings go, "it’s now bypassed the previous champ of the modern satellite era -- the 1997 El Niño has just been toppled by 2015.”Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at Stanford University, called the temperature reading significant. It is the highest such weekly temperature above the average in 25 years of modern record keeping in this key region of the Pacific Ocean west of Peru.“This is a very impressive number,” Swain said, adding that data suggest that this El Niño is still warming up. “It does look like it’s possible that there’s still additional warming” to come.“We’re definitely in the top tier of El Niño events,” Swain said.Temperatures in this key area of the Pacific Ocean rose to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit above average for the week of Nov. 11. That exceeds the highest comparable reading for the most powerful El Niño on record, when temperatures rose 5 degrees Fahrenheit above the average the week of Thanksgiving in 1997.The 5.4 degree Fahrenheit recording above the average temperature is the highest such number since 1990 in this area of the Pacific Ocean, according to the National Weather Service.El Niño is a weather phenomenon involving a section of the Pacific Ocean west of Peru that warms up, causing alterations in the atmosphere that can cause dramatic changes in weather patterns globally.For the United States, El Niño can shift the winter track of storms that normally keeps the jungles of southern Mexico and Central America wet and moves them over California and the southern United States. The northern United States, like the Midwest and Northeast, typically see milder winters during El Niño.The National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center has already forecast a higher chance of a wet winter for almost all of California and the southern United States.But the center’s deputy director, Mike Halpert, cautioned against reading too much into the record-breaking weekly temperature data.El Niño has so far been underperforming in other respects involving changes in the atmosphere important to the winter climate forecast for California, he said.One example: tropical rainfall has not extended from the International Date Line and eastward, approaching South America, as it did by this time in 1997.“In 1997, that pattern has largely established itself,” Halpert said, but that pattern so far is “significantly weaker” than it was back then.Still, Halpert said, “it’s not too late for things to develop.”Patzert, the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory climatologist, said the increase in ocean temperatures west of Peru was a result of a dramatic weakening of the normal east-to-west trade winds in the Pacific Ocean that were observed in October around the International Date Line.That allowed the warm, tropical ocean waters in the western Pacific Ocean to surge to the Americas, leading to this increase in ocean temperatures observed last week.The 1997 El Niño has been considered the strongest such event since the 1950s. The modern era of El Niño tracking came after the 1982-83 event, which came as a surprise and is considered the second strongest on record.The 1997 El Niño was considered so strong and that scientists have been impressed that this El Niño could top that event.Patzert likened it to the shocking defeat of the previously unbeaten Ultimate Fighting Championship champion Ronda Rousey over the weekend by Holly Holm. Or, he added, like the dethroning of a grand champion in sumo wrestling.This El Niño “just flipped the 1997-98 El Niño out of the ring,” Patzert said.El Niño is already being blamed for drought and wildfires in Indonesia, and the United Nations is warning about millions at risk from hunger in eastern and southern Africa and Central America from drought.El Niño is believed to have played a role in the storms this spring that caused floods and ended droughts in Colorado, Texas and Oklahoma. It’s also a factor in the fewer number of hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean while there has been more of them in the eastern Pacific.The unusually active hurricane season has already had impacts on California. Remnants of a summertime hurricane caused so much rain to pour down in Riverside County that an Interstate 10 bridge collapsed. It dumped so much hail near Lake Tahoe that snowplows were called to clear Interstate 80. Last month, an eastern Pacific hurricane, Patricia, became the strongest such cyclone recorded in the Western Hemisphere before it slammed into Mexico.“It’s not as if we’re waiting for El Niño to actually manifest itself -- it has in many ways already,” Patzert said. “There is no doubt: It’s coming.”The big question is whether the above-average ocean temperatures will cause the mountains of Northern California -- a critical source for the state’s largest reservoirs -- to get rain instead of snow. Too much rain in those mountains would not be good for the state; snow is better because it can melt slowly in the spring and summer, gradually refilling reservoirs at a gentle pace. But precipitation coming down as rain there can force dam managers to flush out water to sea to keep reservoirs from overflowing dams.“The really high elevations in the Sierra Nevada will do well,” Swain said, but it’s unknown whether the more important mid-level elevations will get rain or snow.Scientists say they expect El Niño rains to be concentrated in the months of January, February and March.“At some point, during December, we’ll transition to a much more active pattern” for storms, Swain said. “And by the end of December, and certainly by January, February and March, we’ll see above average precipitation, potentially well-above average.”“El Niño is going to be a dominant factor this winter,” Swain said.El Niño is also expected to provide once-in-a-generation waves on beaches not seen since the 1997-98 event, Patzert said, affecting the entire west coast of North America, "from British Columbia all the way down to Costa Rica.""The best surfing waves often precede the storms," Patzert said. "If you have a great day of surfing -- Malibu or Mavericks or someplace -- during an El Niño, then in the next day or two you can expect a big storm."
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Saving Seafood Announces the National Coalition of Fishing Communities
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California's first offshore wind farm proposed near Hearst Castle
MORRO BAY -- This sleepy coastal town of 10,000 people along California's Central Coast is known for its fishing fleet, nearby Hearst Castle and Morro Rock, a craggy 581-foot-tall monolith that dominates the views to the ocean.But a few years from now, Morro Bay may be known for something else: a huge offshore wind farm.In a venture that could pit the state's commitment to green energy against its famed coastal environmental movement, a Seattle company is proposing to build the first ocean wind farm off California's coast.Trident Winds has filed early paperwork with Morro Bay city officials for a plan to install 100 floating turbines -- each up to 636 feet tall -- about 15 miles off the San Luis Obispo County shoreline. The project would generate 1,000 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 300,000 homes.
"It's not oil. It's not fossil fuel. It doesn't spill," said Alla Weinstein, CEO of Trident Winds. "It's energy from the jet stream, as pure as it comes."California is already a national leader in wind energy on land, drawing 8 percent of its electricity from wind turbines. The state now has 1,883 wind turbines, mostly in the Tehachapi Pass area in Kern County, at Altamont Pass in Alameda County, San Gorgonio Pass in Riverside County, and in Solano County. Texas is the only state that generates more electricity from wind.Weinstein, a native of Russia and a former Honeywell engineer, said California will increasingly need to look to the ocean, with its vast spaces where wind speeds are stronger than on land, to meet its ambitious climate change and clean-energy goals.Last month, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law requiring the state's utilities to provide 50 percent of their electricity from solar, wind and other renewable sources by 2030 -- a key piece of the state's strategy to reduce greenhouse gases and smog. Currently, California generates about 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources, double where it was a decade ago.To reach the landmark 50 percent goal, the state will need dozens of massive new solar arrays, wind farms and other projects.
Weinstein harbors no illusions that building huge metal towers in the ocean south of Big Sur will be easy. It will take at least six or seven years to secure permits from the federal government, the Coastal Commission and other agencies, she said. And the politics are likely to be passionate.Some environmentalists are taking a wait-and-see attitude."California just set a very high goal for renewable energy, so we are going to have to see projects like this," said Andrew Christie, director of the Sierra Club's Santa Lucia chapter. "But whenever we do, just like with real estate, it will always be about location, location, location."Christie said he will be watching closely.
Fishermen also are wary."They want an area where a lot of guys fish," said Tom Hafer, president of the Morro Bay Commercial Fishermen's Organization. "We're willing to work with her on it, but we have some problems with it. We have a lot of areas already taken away. I don't know how much more we can lose. We're worried."Weinstein already has begun meeting with fishermen, university officials at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and local political leaders. Her company plans a public forum in December.In her meetings, she explains how the turbines float. One way is to mount them on triangular bases that can be chained to anchors dug into the ocean floor.Weinstein is the former CEO of Principle Power, a Berkeley-based company that developed that floating technology and built a prototype turbine off Portugal in 2011. It continues to produce electricity and has survived 45-foot stormy seas.Floating wind technology is still new. There are three floating turbines off the coast of Japan and one off Norway. But in a major breakthrough last week, Statoil, a Norwegian oil and gas company, won approval from the Scottish government to build a $236 million floating wind farm 15 miles off Peterhead in northeastern Scotland. It will have five large turbines, each 584 feet high, that are expected to begin producing electricity in 2017 for 20,000 homes.One common question Morro Bay residents have asked: Just how big will it look?Because of the distance and the curvature of the Earth, the farther offshore wind farms are, the smaller they appear."It all depends where you are," Weinstein said. "From the beach, you won't see it. If you are up in the hills at Hearst Castle, you'll see it."The 100 turbines would be spaced about half a mile apart, covering 40,000 acres of ocean and linked together with underwater power cables. The electricity would be shipped through one power line buried in the ocean floor back to the Morro Bay Power Plant, a former PG&E facility that was shuttered in 2013 but is still connected to existing transmission lines.Most offshore wind turbines around the world are fixed to the ocean bottom, usually with foundations held down by steel pilings to withstand huge waves and gale-force winds. Floating turbines are easier to install and less intrusive, supporters say.In many ways, California is a world leader in clean energy. But when it comes to offshore wind production, the state and the U.S. in general are far behind other countries.The world's first offshore wind farm went up off Denmark's coast in 1991. Today, an ocean wind boom is under way in Europe as countries race to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.There are now 3,072 massive offshore wind turbines -- many with giant rotating blades the size of a Boeing 747's wingspan -- generating clean, pollution-free electricity in 82 locations off Scotland, England, Denmark, Germany and other European countries, producing enough power for 7 million people."When I drove along the coast of England, I'd see these things, and I thought they were kind of cool," said Gary Griggs, director of the Institute of Marine Sciences at UC Santa Cruz."It's almost like seeing an electric car. It's like, 'Wow, we're doing something right.' They look like the windmills you see in the Midwest."A recent study by the U.S. Department of Energy found that offshore wind in the United States could supply 4,150 gigawatts of electricity -- four times the electricity now produced by all U.S. power plants combined.Griggs said he understands that the Morro Bay project will be controversial. But, he said, every energy source has some impact."I think of myself as being very environmentally conscious," he said. "But at some point we can't keep burning oil and coal. Let's build solar and wind -- and minimize the impacts."Voluminous environmental studies will have to be done for the Morro Bay project to move forward.Weinstein said ocean turbines have less impact on birds than land-based ones because there are fewer birds far offshore. Whales, she said, swim around them, the way they swim around large rocks. She concedes that fishing boats cannot drag nets near them, but says she's willing to compromise on the location.Another challenge is money. The project will cost hundreds of millions of dollars. So Weinstein's company, which was formed in July, will need major investors.The Obama administration has been a big supporter of offshore wind turbines.In recent years, the Department of the Interior has given $4 million grants each to seven proposed U.S. projects and identified three others -- including one off Coos Bay, Oregon, that Weinstein's former company is planning -- as potential recipients of $47 million federal grants.The Coos Bay project has run into problems, however. Its power, projected at 24 cents a kilowatt hour, cost more than the utilities in Oregon want to pay. A bill in the state Legislature to force them to buy it failed this year, slowing the plan.Weinstein and other offshore wind industry officials note that solar power was considerably more expensive 10 years ago, but as the technology improved and more projects were built, the costs dropped significantly. They say they also expect the cost of offshore wind energy to come down in the decade ahead.America's first offshore wind project is under construction on the East Coast. Although critics have all but killed the famous Cape Wind project, off Cape Cod, workers this summer began installing turbines 18 miles off the coast of Rhode Island. The project, funded by the hedge fund D.E. Shaw and several banks, features five turbines 600 feet high -- twice the height of the Statue of Liberty -- and is expected to open in 2017.It won accolades from environmental groups."I am going to remember this day and tell my kids and grandkids that I was there when the first U.S. offshore wind farm was built," Emily Norton, director of the Massachusetts chapter of the Sierra Club, said at the groundbreaking in April."When we had a choice between bequeathing them a future powered by polluting fossil fuels that lead to extreme storms, heat waves and drought, we chose to power their future from the wind, and the sun, and smart technologies."Weinstein says her next step will come in 2016, when she plans to apply to the federal government for an offshore lease. She hopes to open the wind farm in 2025 and set an example for other West Coast ocean wind projects."Nothing is simple," she said. "But this has great potential."
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Big Trouble Looms For California Salmon — And For Fishermen
Courtesy of John Hannon/USBR
The West Coast's historic drought has strained many Californians — from farmers who've watched their lands dry up, to rural residents forced to drink and cook with bottled water. Now, thanks to a blazing hot summer and unusually warm water, things are looking pretty bad for salmon, too – and for the fishermen whose livelihoods depend on them.Preliminary counts of juvenile winter-run Chinook are at extreme low levels. These are salmon that are born during the summer in California's Sacramento River and begin to swim downstream in the fall.Unusually warm water in recent months has caused high mortality for the young salmon, which are very temperature sensitive in their early life stages. Most years, about 25 percent of the eggs laid and fertilized by spawning winter-run fish survive. This summer and fall, the survival rate may be as low as 5 percent, according to Jim Smith, project leader with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Red Bluff office."That's not good," Smith tells The Salt.Worse, it's the second year in a row this has happened. Most Chinook salmon live on a three-year life cycle, which means one more year like the last two could essentially wipe out the winter run. To protect them, fishing for Chinook in the ocean may be restricted in the years ahead, when winter-run fish born in 2014 and 2015 have become big enough to bite a baited hook. The hope is that the few young fish that survived the recent warm-water die-offs will make it through adulthood and eventually return to the river to spawn.Sacramento River winter-run Chinook are already protected by law from anglers. It's mostly the Chinook salmon of the relatively abundant fall run — a genetically distinct strain — that wind up in the fish boxes and coolers of California's commercial and recreational fishermen. The state's salmon fishery has been estimated to be worth $1.4 billion, with the fish finding their way into markets and restaurants.
Courtesy of John Hannon/USBR
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