Better Planners Podcast

Pocket Park Ep: Offshore Wind Energy in Oregon?

• Mary Heberling-Creighton, Shelley Denison

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Shelley and Mary have a second pocket park episode for you all! This one is a shorter episode on a very interesting topic: Offshore Wind Energy. Is there going to be one along the Oregon coast? We talk about how this federal project got to this point, where it is today, and the controversies surrounding the project. Will there be environmental issues, public engagement concerns, tribal nations engagement, and more. 

What is a pocket park episode? It's a shorter episode on highly relevant, planning related topics that are happening in the public realm in real time. 

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Shelley Denison:

Mary, have you listened to any really good podcasts lately?

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Oh, I'm always listening to podcasts.

Shelley Denison:

Tell me.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

I think one of my favorite podcasts of all time. If you just need like a light listen. You know, there's some great podcasts out there that like are incredible. Their research is so well done. They have like a whole series on like a particular topic and it's just so good. But if you just need a quick 45 minutes of just some fun chatter, my favorite podcast is called I Said No Gifts.

Shelley Denison:

I love I Said No Gifts.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

And, uh, it's with comedian Bridger Winegar, also the best name possible. And, um, he brings on a guest to talk, and Well, lo and behold they bring him a gift. Can you believe that?

Shelley Denison:

That's crazy.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Even though he said, I said no gifts.

Shelley Denison:

Yeah.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

And they bring him one and then they talk about it. So that's a recommendation from Mary. What about you?

Shelley Denison:

There's one podcast I really love and they recently did a great two part series. The podcast is called Benchtopia. B I N C H T O P I A. And they did a really great two part series on the history of the War on Drugs.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Ooh.

Shelley Denison:

It was very good. And the fact that it's one of my favorite podcasts, I think, is illustrative of how my podcast is. taste has changed over time because I used to be really into, you know, the big budget, super polished, super well produced, you know, This American Life, Radiotopia, 99 percent Invisible. Like, I still like those, but these days what I go for is like, just give me Two millennial women just yapping.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

This sounds very similar.

Shelley Denison:

Um, that's, that's just what I want. I just want to listen. I just want, give me the parasocial relationship.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Yeah.

Shelley Denison:

You know? That, that very specific genre of, you know, two millennial women, maybe two gen z women, who are both very dumb and very smart at the same time. That's what we're going for.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

You and me.

Shelley Denison:

You and me. Very dumb and very smart.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Absolutely.

Shelley Denison:

At the same time.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Let's get tattoos.

Shelley Denison:

With lots of vocal fry. Just. Nothing but vocal fry. Constantly.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

You're listening to the Better Planners podcast, brought to you by the Oregon chapter of the American Planning Association. I'm Mary Heberling Creighton.

Shelley Denison:

And I'm Shelly Dennison.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

You can find us on Instagram at better planners, planners is plural. On the webpage for the Oregon APA chapter, and on all of your favorite podcast streaming platforms.

Shelley Denison:

And you can get in touch with us by sending us an email to betterplannerspodcast at gmail. com.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

So Shelley, what are we going to be talking about today?

Shelley Denison:

So in this Pocket Park episode, we're going to be talking a little bit about the history and the controversy around a federal wind energy project off the coast of Southern Oregon near Coos Bay and Brookings. OPB recently published an article, uh, April 30th, about a big development in this project. Also, a lot of the Research that I did came from OPB. One specific journalist in particular, her name is Monica Samayowa.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Shelley, can you get us up to speed on the history of this project?

Shelley Denison:

Yeah, so back in March of 2011, there was a press release from what was then called the Federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement about an intergovernmental task force established Quote,"to facilitate communication between B O E M R E and state, local, tribal, and federal stakeholders concerning commercial renewable energy leasing and development on the outer continental shelf off the coast of Oregon." The Bureau Director at the time, Michael R. Bromwich, said,"B O E M R E created this task force to coordinate and consult with the state of Oregon and others on potential renewable energy activities. On the OCS, the Outer Continental Shelf off Oregon. We will work together with federal, state, local, and tribal stakeholders to consider issues and approaches relating to future offshore renewable energy leasing and development to support Oregon's energy goals and expand our nation's energy resource portfolio." So from 2012 to 2022, as is the modus operandi of any government project. There were a lot of task force meetings and not much else. But in 2021, March of 2021, there was a press release from the White House from the Biden administration announcing a goal to create 45 gigawatts of offshore wind energy in the country by 2035. So, I had no idea what a gigawatt was.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Yeah.

Shelley Denison:

Um, a gigawatt is about a million kilowatts. And the average United States household uses about 10, 700 kilowatts per year.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Hmm, okay.

Shelley Denison:

So, a million kilowatts is in one gigawatt. So, 45 gigawatts is gonna power a lot of homes. Uh, just the offshore facilities on the Oregon coast are expected to produce enough energy to power over a million homes.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Oh wow.

Shelley Denison:

So in April of 2022 there was a press release from the U. S. Department of the Interior announcing that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, so now it's just BOEM, will publish two separate calls for information and nominations for possible leasing in areas that are determined to be suitable off the coast of Oregon. In August of 2023, BOEM identified two draft wind energy areas off the southern Oregon coast near Brookings and Coos Bay. So in October of 2023, there was a public comment period where members of the public could submit their public comments about these draft wind energy areas and about the project. During that time, BOEM received 1, 157 public comments.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Yeah. That's a lot.

Shelley Denison:

Ugh. That's a lot. I didn't go through every single one. Who has time for that?

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Yeah.

Shelley Denison:

Uh, I did look through quite a few and found some pretty consistent themes. There were concerns about environmental impacts to water and wildlife. Uh, negative effects on commercial fishing, and also, interestingly, fundamental questions about engineering capacity.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Hmm.

Shelley Denison:

Um, of if this was even, like, structurally possible.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Oh, interesting. Okay.

Shelley Denison:

To build on that particular area. So, overwhelmingly, a lot of these comments were against the project or skeptical or hesitant about the project.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Right.

Shelley Denison:

Which is unsurprising. I think anybody who works in the public sector who has done any kind of public engagement knows that the, the people who provide public comments tend to be the people who are not fans of whatever project it is you're working on. Right.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Yeah. I would always remind people, like, the comments you're going to get at a public meeting are going to be the ones that are concerned.

Shelley Denison:

Right.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

The people that are fine with it, they don't feel like they have the need to provide their comment, which I will articulate right now here. Even if you are in support of a project, please provide public comment.

Shelley Denison:

Oh my gosh, I do that all the time.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Yeah.

Shelley Denison:

Because, because I've been on the other side, and like I feel insecure, like I feel bad, my feelings are hurt.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Yeah.

Shelley Denison:

When I read nothing but negative comments about something I'm working on. I just think about, like, I just want to, like, encourage, I just want to support, you know, the poor, bureaucratic, you know, mid level employee working on this project. I just want to let them know, you're doing a good job, so do that.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Yeah.

Shelley Denison:

Don't be mean.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

No.

Shelley Denison:

So Governor Kotak, who is generally supportive of the project, did echo some of those public concerns. She called for more transparency, public engagement, and assessment of the potential environmental impacts. There were also comments, in fact, official resolutions passed by the Douglas County and Curry County Boards of County Commissioners. Curry County's resolution reads,"This correspondence serves as formal notice that the Curry County Board of Commissioners adamantly opposes the development or installation of wind energy equipment facilities and structures related to the proposed BOEM Oregon offshore wind project off the coast of Curry County. Such opposition was found to be unanimous among the Board of Commissioners in representing the citizens of Curry County." And then the Douglas County one read,"The Douglas County is opposed to the BOEM offshore wind project, which could potentially have drastic impacts on Douglas County, Douglas County's fishing industry, Douglas County's endangered species populations, and the residents of Douglas County."

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

That's super interesting because I think when we were discussing this episode, you had mentioned that a lot of renewable energy sources actually provide really high paying jobs.

Shelley Denison:

Right. Yeah.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

And so I'll usually, now I'm not going to say this is common all the time, but usually a lot of, uh, county commissioners, city councils really want to, to promote high, uh, high paying jobs within their communities. So. I'm not, I wouldn't say that I'm totally surprised by these comments, but, um, it's also something that I found interesting.

Shelley Denison:

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, a lot of times, um, energy projects are, like, high paying, uh, union jobs, right? Really, really attractive for economic development, um, but a lot of the concerns seem to be outweighing, you know, those potential benefits.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Right.

Shelley Denison:

So in February of this year, February 2024, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management finalized those wind energy areas, and they total about 195, 000 acres. The Coos Bay wind energy area is about 61, 000 acres and is 32 miles from shore, and the Brookings wind energy area is about 134, 000 acres and is 18 miles from shore. So April 30th, very recently, the U. S. Department of the Interior announced in a press release that it's preparing to accept bids for the Brookings and Coos Bay WEAs. So it's going out for Um, you know, contractor bid to find interested, uh, private companies who would be interested in, in, in actually building and maintaining and running those, uh, wind energy facilities. And the press release also announced two opportunities for public comment, one for the areas that would be developed and one for the federal government's draft environmental assessment. So that's where we are now, um, is that we're. We are waiting on the federal government to, um, to put out that call for proposals.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Yeah. Do you have any insight into why this project is so controversial?

Shelley Denison:

Yeah. So, in my research on this, there were kind of four main themes, four main things that people were really concerned about. They were environmental impacts, transparency and public engagement, economic impacts, and tribal governance and tribal sovereignty. So the environmental impacts, a lot of people are really concerned about the, uh, the potential effects on the marine environment.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Mm hmm.

Shelley Denison:

In particular, obviously the water, and then also the wildlife, right? All of the ecology that exists, uh, in those offshore environments, people are really concerned about. Anytime you put any kind of industrial facility in the water, you're gonna have some kind of runoff, some kind of pollutant.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Right.

Shelley Denison:

And people are really concerned about how that's going to affect the offshore ecology, and rightfully so and so there are a lot of calls for More scrutiny, more detail, more thoroughness on environmental reviews for these projects. Something that I really loved in a lot of the public comments that I read, people were talking about like very specific species of wildlife that they were concerned about. And, I don't know, I just love that. I just love that, that members of the public get really into, you know, very specific birds.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Yeah.

Shelley Denison:

You know, I don't, I just. I just love that about Oregon.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Yeah.

Shelley Denison:

You know, love it. Um, and then there's a lot of concerns about transparency and public engagement. So there was a public meeting in Coos Bay in September of 2023. So going back up to our timeline, that was very shortly after the Bureau, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management released those two draft wind energy areas.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Okay.

Shelley Denison:

So I was reading about this open house, this public meeting from a local Coos Bay news source called The World. And it is so illustrative of how disconnected government can be from the public, sometimes. And I think it is super relevant to planners and how we do public engagement. So I, I just want to read. And this is from, this is from that, that article from The World about what happened at this public meeting."Inside the open house, members of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management were ready to provide brief opening remarks, introduce staff to the audience, and encourage participants to go to a series of different information stations. Participants Coos Bay Public Library were encouraged to meander and chat with governmental representatives at different stations. The stations were set up for small group and one-on-one discussions about state ocean energy and climate policies fishing data, natural resource studies, and visual simulations. One station was set up for public comments. But community members inside the packed meeting room raised concerns. They wanted the opportunity to record public comments in front of the entire audience.'Listen, you work for us. Remember that. All of you work for us and you're not letting us listen to what others want to say', a meeting participant said.'We're concerned that what you're doing to our coastlines and to our communities, we're concerned what you're doing to our businesses', another member of the public said. BOEM meeting representatives said that while they understood the public's concerns, The meeting they had prepared for was not set up for it."

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Mm. Mm hmm.

Shelley Denison:

Way to miss the forest for the trees.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Well, I think it's, I think the way that they set up that public meeting should have been like a, uh, a third or fourth public meeting.

Shelley Denison:

Right.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Like, you gotta, you gotta go in with like, here's what we're talking about.

Shelley Denison:

Mm hmm.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Let's all in a, in a conversation come together and talk about like, what is this project? Here are the things that we're noticing. Please tell us your concerns. Then they come back and say, we heard your concerns, here are the things that we're addressing because of those concerns. I mean, it's like public engagement 101.

Shelley Denison:

I know. I know. Yeah. The concept of like formatting a public meeting, it's one of those things where it's like the medium is the message, you know? B O E M, I'm sure all of the stations that they came up with, the materials they came up with.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Oh, I bet it was fantastic.

Shelley Denison:

Yeah, I bet, like, being able to, uh, communicate, like, super technical stuff in, like, an understandable way is such a hard job.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Yeah.

Shelley Denison:

And when all of your energy is focused on that, and you miss The, the format of how you're presenting things, it can fall apart really fast. And I think that this is a really, a really important example of that because yeah, if they would have done more upfront engagement with the public to understand what kind of format would be the most appropriate for this situation, I think they could have avoided this whole thing. And. You know, it's one of those things that, that I think in planning and in the public sector in general, it's so hard to navigate because a lot of times members of the public are coming in just by default mistrustful.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Oh yeah, absolutely.

Shelley Denison:

You know, and that's, it's frustrating, it's super frustrating for us. Right? Because oftentimes it feels like it doesn't matter how we present information, it doesn't matter what kind of information we present, it doesn't matter how much we listen, they're going to continue to be mistrustful of us. And so it's absolutely a super frustrating reality, but it's a reality nonetheless. And I think it is the job of planners, it's the job in general of public servants who do public engagement work to try to minimize that as much as possible, and to be super focused on the medium as well as the message in a way that tries to build trust, that tries to repair relationships with the public.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Yeah, and as a federal government entity, you just have to know going into any public meeting that there's going to be some contention there just as being a federal government delegate.

Shelley Denison:

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, being, you know, a city employee is one thing. Being a representative of the federal government.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Yeah.

Shelley Denison:

I would feel like I would need to go into public meetings wearing, like, a bulletproof vest.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Yeah, I mean, yeah.

Shelley Denison:

You know?

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Mm hmm.

Shelley Denison:

So, there are also a lot of concerns about economic impacts, specifically on the commercial fishing industry. Uh, again, with, with those environmental, um, impacts on wildlife, uh, on fish in particular, um, a lot of people are concerned about what that's going to do to the Southern Oregon commercial fishing industry.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Right.

Shelley Denison:

Um, that it's going to lose a lot of jobs. And a lot of times fishing industry jobs are intergenerational. A lot of times someone's a fisherman because, you It's, you know, their dad was a fisherman, you know, and so you have that, that aspect of kind of like an intergenerational industry. And then there's also some worries about the idea of, of offshore energy being like a boom or bust kind of industry. So one of the, um, county commissioners from Douglas County talked about in the 1980s,

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Mm-Hmm.

Shelley Denison:

when southern Oregon had that boom of the timber harvest and it bred in a ton of jobs. A lot of people moved down there for the, for the great jobs. But then the industry in southern Oregon kind of fell apart.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Mm-Hmm mm-Hmm.

Shelley Denison:

And it left, um, quite a bit of economic devastation in its wake.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Yeah.

Shelley Denison:

So there's some concern that that could happen again with offshore energy. That it's going to create a lot of really good jobs, a lot of people are going to move down there, but then it's not going to work out.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Well, yeah, it's like you don't want to put all of your eggs into one basket.

Shelley Denison:

Exactly.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Kind of situation.

Shelley Denison:

Yeah, exactly. And then, there's also the, um, concern about tribal sovereignty and tribal governance.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Mm hmm.

Shelley Denison:

So, the Confederated Tribes of the Coos, Lower Ampqua, and Sayusla Indians are concerned that BOEM hasn't consulted with them enough in order to preserve the cultural resources, such as fishing, and culturally significant viewsheds. They passed an official resolution, uh, again, October of 2023, during that public comment period. I'm gonna read a little bit of it, because I think it's important to read it, uh, in their words."Whereas the ocean, marine resources, including fisheries and viewsheds, are associated with the utmost significance to our cultural identity and intergenerational transference of knowledge, and whereas the ocean is a source of life and subsistence for our tribes, And the ocean represents creation of our people and underwater villages of our relations."

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Oh, I love that.

Shelley Denison:

Yeah. And then the resolution goes on to say,"BOEM has continually failed to engage in meaningful government to government consultation with the tribe and has failed to ensure that impacts from offshore wind energy development to tribal cultural resources, including fisheries and view sheds, are avoided or mitigated to the satisfaction of the tribe." So I was researching this and I came across, um, some really interesting research on how a lot of times renewable energy projects have disproportionately detrimental effects on marginalized communities. It's for the exact same reason that landfills have disproportionately negative effects on marginalized communities. It's the same reason why pollution generating industrial land uses, right? It's because that's where the land is cheap. And it's because whether intentionally or not, those, those Communities are left out of the conversation, or they're considered less important in the conversation, or they are considered only tokenistically in the conversation, and that's a problem. That's a problem. And it's one of those things where I think everybody is pro renewable energy. You know, I think most planners would say, if we could evolve from coal, from natural gas to renewable energy. Yeah, that is absolutely desirable. But at what cost?

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Yeah.

Shelley Denison:

What cultural cost?

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Yeah.

Shelley Denison:

What, uh, what cost of cultural significance?

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Yeah.

Shelley Denison:

So in, in the 2024. Oregon Legislative Session, there is a bill, House Bill 4080, as a response to a lot of these concerns. Uh, it was a, a bill that would require a state roadmap to define state standards for offshore wind energy based on engagement with impacted communities, particularly tribal communities.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

I think all of this is such a case for how engaged Oregonians and tribal nations in the area, in the region, are with, like, the public sector.

Shelley Denison:

Yeah.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Like, people always talk about how, like, at community meetings, there's usually, like, a good number of folks that show up. And it seems unusual to them. But that's kind of, like I don't know if I want to say it's ingrained in our culture here, but I, I think people do take notice of things a lot more than maybe other states or other areas. I'm not sure. Totally. But I think it's something that, like, if, if the federal government's gonna come into Oregon, they gotta know that, like, you're gonna get public comments.

Shelley Denison:

Oh, yeah, for sure. For sure. Yeah. I think, um, Yeah, I would be really interested to see, you know, if it's possible to do kind of a state by state comparison.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Yeah.

Shelley Denison:

Of, of engagement.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Mm hmm.

Shelley Denison:

Yeah. I definitely think Oregon has a tradition of activism.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Mm hmm.

Shelley Denison:

You know, has a tradition of, of civic engagement in a lot of different ways, in a lot of different ways. You know, formats.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Right.

Shelley Denison:

So, yeah, I agree. I think it does kind of come naturally to us, especially when it comes to, like, environmental issues.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Yeah.

Shelley Denison:

Yeah. When I was in, when I was in grad school in Ohio studying urban planning, what we talked about when we talked about Oregon was this long history of public engagement, of civic engagement on environmental issues.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Right.

Shelley Denison:

Like a long, a long, long history, like way before anybody else was taking it seriously. Oregonians were taking it seriously.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Well, back in, like, when they developed the whole, the land use system that we currently have in the 1970s. Their number one goal was civic engagement, or citizen participation, public participation, whatever you want to call it, but like, that was the number one goal.

Shelley Denison:

Yeah. Yeah, I think there's, I think there's some really, really interesting things that planners could be learning from this whole thing. One is to really be meaningful, really be intentional in how we think about public engagements. And to, to choose formats that meet the needs, that meet the desires of the public with whom we are engaging.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Right. I also love the fact that we're talking about all of these potential pitfalls now.

Shelley Denison:

Yeah.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Versus having to be reactionary when, like, In a lot of other cases, it's like, oh, all of a sudden the cancer rates have spiked in this particular area because, oh, they didn't think about the environmental impacts on this community.

Shelley Denison:

Right. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. I, I, yeah, I think this is a really good opportunity for Oregon and for the federal government, for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to take a lot of these concerns seriously.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Mm hmm.

Shelley Denison:

To understand that even though You know, a lot of us are on the same page about wanting renewable energy, of understanding the importance of appropriate siting of renewable energy facilities. That doesn't outweigh a lot of these concerns that people have. And especially when it comes to the cultural significance to Southern Oregon. To southern Oregon tribes.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Mm hmm.

Shelley Denison:

Yeah.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

Yeah, this is super interesting and also Extremely current.

Shelley Denison:

Yeah.

Mary Heberling-Creighton:

I love that. We're talking about this already.

Shelley Denison:

I'm really interested in seeing where this goes