Groups fear SAMP moving too quickly

A process to zone the waters off the coast of Rhode Island is drawing fire from some environmental groups that complain the state is rushing the work to meet arbitrary deadlines.

The plan by the R.I. Coastal Resources Management Council, called the ocean Special Area Management Plan, is nearing completion after two years and $9.8 million. The council is scheduled in August to adopt the plan covering about 1,467 square miles of ocean.

Once adopted, the SAMP will lay the groundwork for permitting development in the waters off the coast. Such development could include the installation of wind farms proposed by Deepwater Wind and backed by Gov. Donald L. Carcieri and legislative leaders.

The CRMC says the document will also provide Rhode Island some control over federal waters under a U.S. law that requires development in federal waters to be consistent with state regulations in abutting state-controlled waters.

In formal comments to the CRMC and in interviews with Providence Business News, environment groups protested that the SAMP lacks specific policies and regulations that would serve as the framework for permitting an offshore wind farm. And they say significant scientific data is missing.

"It seems essentially to be an inventory of the resources that we have as opposed to a roadmap of where we want to go," Conservation Law Foundation Rhode Island chapter Executive Director Tricia Jedele said.

Jedele and John Torgan, director of advocacy at Save The Bay, said the state appeared in a race to finish the document before the fall for reasons that mystified them. Torgan speculated that the August deadline was set for political reasons so as to come before the November elections, while Jedele said the deadline appeared to advance business interests of Deepwater Wind.

The New Jersey-based company has said it wants the first of two proposed wind farms operational by 2012. That would allow it to claim federal tax credits that expire in December 2012.

Jedele and Torgan complained too that the state released the chapters - some stretching into hundreds of pages - at such a clip that they could not adequately review them within the 30-day comment period. And some chapters lack policy sections, the crux of the entire SAMP, they argued.

"We are now concerned heading into the final stretch that we don't have really complete information, or the kind of information or even enough information we can use to make meaningful evaluation for the potential of offshore wind," Torgan said.

And Eugenia Marks, senior director for policy at the Audubon Society of Rhode Island, said the massive amounts of dense scientific data coming out of the SAMP came too quickly for the public to comprehend. By the end of the process, the SAMP is expected to contain more than 3,500 pages.

CRMC Executive Director Grover Fugate has asked critics for patience, saying more detailed policies are coming and said that the draft chapters released so far already contain more detail than similar studies anywhere along the Eastern seaboard. As for the August deadline, Fugate said funding sources drove the date.

"I think it's one of those things people will always want more time" for, Fugate said.

Of the project's budget, the University of Rhode Island, whose researchers are compiling the bulk of the document, is chipping in $1.25 million and the federal government is providing another $2.6 million, much of it from the federal stimulus. The bulk of the money, $6 million, is coming from the R.I. Economic Development Corporation at the urging of Carcieri, who is in his eighth and final year in office.

Carcieri spokeswoman Amy Kempe said the August deadline is the target initially requested by the CRMC and URI long before Deepwater Wind surfaced as the state's preferred offshore wind farm developer. She said the state needed to spend the $2 million in federal stimulus money soon or risk losing it, but regardless, the governor's office believes the SAMP process provided plenty of time.

She denied that the governor is pushing for completion before he leaves office in January.

"He doesn't really think in terms of legacy," Kempe said. "He thinks of moving projects ahead."

She added that neither CRMC nor URI formally requested an extension and the governor would support one only if there was "a good reason."

Paul Rich, chief development officer at Deepwater Wind, said the company was not pushing the state to finish the project in August. Rich said the company is interested in the SAMP being done right because it may be used as a model for future offshore wind farm permitting.

"We're not driving them toward any completion date," Rich said.

Rich said the company plans to file an application with the U.S. Army Corps in September. The application is dependent on the SAMP being finished, but Rich said Deepwater could delay the application filing - though not indefinitely - if the CRMC decided to push back the release of the SAMP.

Two years ago, the state announced it would undertake the SAMP and that it would cost $3.2 million, with the entire cost paid for by the developer selected to build an offshore wind farm. The project's cost grew after officials factored in URI's contribution and received a federal earmark, Fugate said. Additional state money came after CRMC decided to explore certain topics more in-depth.

Deepwater, upon its selection as the state's preferred developer, agreed to pay $3.2 million of EDC's share of the SAMP's cost, whether or not its proposed wind farms go forward. Fugate said the payment would "absolutely not" lead to the SAMP rubber-stamping Deepwater's proposal.

As one check on the process, the CRMC formed a public stakeholder group that has been meeting to advise researchers and CRMC on the draft documents. Now, many are waiting to see just what the CRMC does with the research.

"We will discover to what extent who rules, who has the clout and the juice and the authority ... and then who will fold, spin, spindle and mutilate [the SAMP] to their needs," said Christopher Brown, president of the Rhode Island Commercial Fishermen's Association, which took part in the stakeholder process. Some fishermen are concerned a wind farm will make it more difficult for them to fish in some areas.

"These wind farms are not going to be a cost-effective way to produce electricity," said Brian Loftes, a third-generation Point Judith fisherman. "It'll be expensive electricity and many fishermen are going to lose fishing ground to wind farms. Something about it isn't right."

Jedele said the Conservation Law Foundation, another stakeholder, worried that if the SAMP produced results unfavorable toward a wind farm, the legislature and governor would propose legislation circumventing the CRMC. She pointed to legislation on Smith Hill that would essentially overrule a decision by the R.I. Public Utilities Commission, which earlier this year rejected a proposed power-purchase agreement between Deepwater Wind and National Grid.

Fugate said such a scenario appeared unlikely. Even if the legislature found a way to overrule the CRMC, any development in federal waters would still face scrutiny from federal regulators.

The SAMP could, however, speed up the federal-permitting process for a developer, Fugate said. Much of the data collected through the SAMP could serve as the underlying data for federal studies, thereby shortening the time between application submittal and a decision.