County residents butt heads with harbor commissioners over offshore wind 

Unhappy residents accused Port San Luis Harbor District commissioners of being untruthful about their connections to offshore wind companies during a chaotic, heated Aug. 27 meeting.

"I would like clarification on why several days before your last meeting [July 23] why Clean Energy Terminals had on their website that you were partners, in partnership, and that you had come to an agreement," REACT Alliance President Mandy Davis asked during public comment. "It was there on their website and to refer to someone as a partner is very, very specific."

click to enlarge

• Photo By Samantha Herrera
• TENSIONS RISE The Port San Luis Harbor District's Aug. 27 meeting got heated after community members who were against offshore wind development expressed their disdain for commissioners who voted in July to approve studies about whether Port San Luis can be a potential support site for such offshore development.

Davis' comment comes a month after commissioners voted 3-2, with Commissioners Mary Matakovich and William Barrow dissenting, to collaborate with Clean Energy Terminals (CET) on studies focused on whether Port San Luis can be a potential site to support offshore wind development.

CET invests in and develops port infrastructure needed for offshore wind projects by bringing private capital and expertise into early-stage port projects and working in partnership with public port authorities, harbor districts, and local municipalities, according to its website.

A commission staff report from July 23 states that wind projects off the coast of Morro Bay will need landside support from a local port to help with construction. A lack of existing offshore wind ports on the West Coast, the report says, gives SLO County an opportunity to become a hub for offshore wind and clean tech innovation.

"Multiple offshore wind planning reports identified Port San Luis as a high-potential site to host an operations and maintenance port," the July 23 staff report stated.

According to an August press release from CET, the company's technical and commercial study for the West Coast's first offshore wind operations and maintenance (O&M) port will take around six to 18 months to complete and will include "robust and meaningful bilateral community and stakeholder dialogue."

"Many San Luis Obispo County stakeholders are interested in what a potential O&M port in San Luis Bay could look and feel like," the press release states. "However, there are not many existing examples of the type of 'low impact' O&M port concept that could be a good fit for the California Central Coast."

Commissioners' July decision to allow CET to conduct studies struck a nerve with residents throughout the county, 50 of whom showed up to the commission's Aug. 27 meeting to express their disdain for offshore wind farm development on the Central Coast.

"Out where they want to put these wind farms is where my albacore went, and I love my tuna. This is not a good thing, to take my wonderful little port and change it forever so it will never come back," Grover Beach resident Brenda Auer said during public comment. "It's my happy place being on that ocean and the things I've seen. You're going to destroy a lot of it. I want you to go to the fish store if you don't have a fish and tap on the glass. Fish feel that, they feel the vibrations. When you put those electrical charges and the constant wind turbines going, it affects our fishing."

SLO County 3rd District Supervisor Dawn Ortiz-Legg came to commissioners' defense and thanked them for the staff reports that she felt provided the community with thorough background and information on offshore wind.

"When I look at the past, I think that it must have been really hard for change when they took out the railroad that came into the port, and it must have been hard when the change happened when the people's harbor was taken out of the area that is now Pirates Cove," she said. "Change is really challenging for us but can really be a lot of positives as well."

Meeting attendees yelled in response to Ortiz-Legg's comments, with one saying that offshore wind isn't about "change, it's about money."

Residents urged one another to Zoom into the Sept. 9 Avila Valley Advisory Council meeting, as CET representatives should be there to answer questions about the upcoming studies.

"Please, everybody put that on your calendar so that we can actually have our questions answered that aren't answered by this group," Nicole Dorfman said during public comment. Δ

Correction: The original version of this story incorrectly stated that Jim Blecha dissented on the Clean Energy Terminals (CET) studies vote. Blecha voted in favor of the studies, while Commissioner William Barrow voted against it. We regret this error.