Sorry for the late notice but we just found out that the CCC executive staff will be doing a report Wednesday June 12 under item 6a on the Morro Bay Wind and Fisheries working group progress.  This is BOEM’s Morro Bay wind energy lease area Condition 7 Working Group that the CCC required in their Consistency Determination to permit wind developers to do offshore wind development.  The working group is made up of fishermen, seafood processors, fishermen organization representatives, state agencies (SLC, CCC, DFW, others), and wind developers with CA leases.   The working group's charter is to develop a statewide template for mitigation of offshore wind development.  This includes “Best Practices for site surveys”.  

We need to write letters of concern that the “best practices for site surveys” have not been developed by the working group before site surveys have been allowed to proceed.  As a result, Equinor has begun doing surveys with no independent acoustic monitoring, no before/during/after impact control studies of marine life, no clear communication plan for the fishermen,  and no mitigation plan for impacts to wildlife and to stakeholders in place.  There is no enforcement of the sound perimeters,  there is no scout boat, they are using a foreign vessel with questionable violations to the Jones Act, they are working at night and in low visibility using some type of “alternative method” of seeing but no one will confirm exactly how and what that method is.  

The CCC is relying on BOEM’s incomplete, inaccurate Environmental Assessment (EA) that states there will be no impacts from site surveys on marine wildlife and no impacts to fishermen.   This conclusion is based on irrelevant old studies and assumptions - there has NEVER been a study of impacts from High Resolution Geographic mapping ever done in the Pacific Ocean.  Already, black cod fishermen have documented a 67% decline in their catches. 

The decibels (228dB) they will be allowed to use do have impacts to mammals, fish, invertebrates, larvae, zooplankton, and krill. 

 CALL TO ACTION: Please send in a letter to ExecutiveStaff@coastal.ca.gov before 5 pm on Friday, June 7th, in order for the Coastal Commissioners to be able to read it prior to the meeting.  

Here is a direct link to provide these written comments. https://www.coastal.ca.gov/meetings/agenda/#/2024/6. Scroll down to item 6a and click on submit comments.