Offshore wind has been an ongoing debate for many years in Morro Bay, and on Monday, the Department of Interior announced that two wind energy leases in the U.S., including the Golden State Wind lease in Morro Bay, had voluntarily pulled out.
Some community members are happy to hear this.
We believe that this is a good start, it is in the best interest of us locals and everybody in California,” said Saro Rizzo, REACT Alliance Vice President.
The interior said that Golden State Wind will be able to recover about $120 million in lease fees, out of $150.3 million total.
KSBY News reached out to Ocean Winds, which co-owns Golden State Wind, and they said in a statement:
We did not take this decision lightly. But when the underlying conditions in a market change, we must adapt. In this case, receiving a refund for the lease payments we had invested and exiting on agreed terms was the right outcome for our shareholders and partners, said Michael Brown, CEO of Ocean Winds North America.
Those terms include making financial investments in oil and gas assets, infrastructure or projects in the Gulf Coast, according to the interior.
It will be spent in the United States,” Rizzo said. “So, that money will be creating jobs over here and more importantly producing energy much quicker than what the plans would be off the coast of Morro Bay which would not be a lease until 2036.”
The company also agreed not to pursue any new offshore wind projects in the United States.
Representative Salud Carbajal, who supported the wind energy project said on Tuesday that he was outraged, and that the project would have strengthened energy security and boosted the local economy saying partially in a statement:
Because of a bizarre personal vendetta against wind energy, Donald Trumps administration is turning a historic opportunity into a historic failure.
Morro Bay Mayor Carla Wixom told KSBY News that while the lease sites are out in federal waters, the city has always been a part of the conversation.
Tonight we have a meeting for our city council that will discuss operations and maintenance studies that were done by Mott MacDonald for Morro Bay and Port San Luis both, Wixom said.
Wixom added that some of the concerns the city has expressed were environmental impacts to the harbor, estuary, and species in the area.
When the requirement to bring in those larger boats 300 feet and the ability to turn in the harbor would need a lot of dredging and work that could impact, environmentally impact those sensitive habitats, Wixom said.
She also said that the two current lease sites out there, held by Equinor and Invenergy, but with offshore wind projects being stopped federally its currently up in the air where they are in the process.