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SERVING CURRY COUNTY SINCE 1946

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WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 23 2023

Brookings, Oregon

Capturing the wind

Federal agency ID’s possible sites off Brookings and Coos Bay

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STAFF REPORT Country Media, Inc.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has identified two draft Wind Energy Areas (WEAs) off the Oregon Coast and opened a 60-day public review and comment period on those WEAs. The development is part of the BidenWe look forward Harris administration’s to working with goal of deploying 30 the state to gigawatts of offshore wind energy capacity help us finalize by 2030 and 15 offshore areas that have strong gigawatts of floating resource potential offshore wind by 2035. The draft WEAs and the fewest cover approximately environmental 219,568 acres offshore and user conflicts. southern Oregon with their closest Elizabeth Klein, points ranging from BOEM Director approximately 18 – 32 miles off the coast. The two sites are just northwest of Coos Bay and west of Brookings.

A map of the draft WEAs can be found on Oregon state activities page. “As BOEM works to identify potential areas for offshore wind development, we continue to prioritize a robust and transparent process, including ongoing engagement with Tribal governments, agency partners, the fishing community, and other ocean users,” said BOEM Director Elizabeth Klein. “At the request of Oregon’s governor and other state officials, there will be a 60-day public comment period on the draft WEAs and BOEM will hold an intergovernmental task force meeting in addition to public meetings during the comment period. We look forward to working with the state to help us finalize offshore areas that have strong resource potential and the fewest environmental and user conflicts.” Oregon has major opportunities for offshore wind deployment, which will create good-paying jobs and new economic activity. Due to the deep waters off of Oregon’s coast, these areas are also an opportunity to accelerate U.S. leadership in floating technologies. The draft WEAs announced today would tap up to 2.6 GW of Oregon’s potential. To identify the draft WEAs, BOEM

used a comprehensive process that involved outreach to potentially impacted stakeholders and ocean users, Tribes, and the public to identify the potential offshore locations that appear most suitable for floating offshore wind energy development and took into consideration possible impacts to local coastal and marine resources and ocean users. BOEM collaborated with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science to use an ocean planning model that seeks to identify and minimize conflicts. The two draft WEAs reflect changes based on public, stakeholder, and interagency engagement from the Oregon Call Area that the Department of the Interior released for public comment in April 2022. See WIND, Page 10

Port dredging project set to begin ELLIOT SCHWARZ Country Media, Inc.

Courtesy photo from the U.S. Forest Service New wildfires erupted last week in the Smith River Del Norte County just below the Oregon border in California.

O’Brien wildfire forces evacuations

Highway 101 closed briefly

Smith River Complex

ELLIOT SCHWARZ Country Media, Inc. Fire crews have mopped up a wildfire adjacent to Highway 101 between Gold Beach and Port Orford that for a time forced evacuations and shutdown the busy coast route. The O’Brien Fire broke out Aug. 12 stretching across an estimated 25 acres keeping firefighters both in the air and on land busy for the next several days. “This is difficult terrain and makes progress slow and challenging,” the Coos Forest Protective Association (CFPA) said in a Facebook post. “Resources from the Flat Fire have joined the local resources to boost the efforts.” Multiple structures were threatened but none were lost, the post stated. Curry County Sheriff’s

Elliot Schwarz / Country Media, Inc. Far left: One of the wildfire warning signed placed along Highway 101 near Gold Beach. deputies knocked on doors in the area threatened by the fire Saturday and Sunday mornings, Aug. 12 and 13, warning residents of the evacuation Level 3 (Get Out Now) in the areas of Sky Ranch and Coy Creek, according to Deputy Kelsey Bolduc. By late Sunday, Aug. 13, residents were allowed back to their homes, the highway was reopened and power that had been lost by the fire was restored to the area. The cause of the wildfire was still under investigation at press time. Gold Beach Fire,

INDEX

Pistol River Fire, Ophir Fire, Cedar Valley Fire, Myrtle Point Fire, Green Acres Fire, Coquille Fire, Bandon Fire, Harbor Fire, Curry County Sheriff’s, Port Orford Police, Oregon State Police and ODOT, Sixes Fire, Langlois Fire, and Port Orford Fire crews assisted in the incident. Coos Curry Electric Cooperative crews restore service where it was disrupted by the fire. The Red Cross had opened a shelter at the First Baptist Church in Gold Beach to help those being evacuated.

According to the U.S. Forest Service, as of late last week 13 fires within the Smith River Complex in Del Norte County, three of which have been fully contained. The remaining 10 fires are estimated to be over 1,500 acres, these fires include the Holiday, Kelly, Prescott, Diamond, and other smaller fires. See photos and updates at currypilot.com. Caltrans reports District 1 U.S. Highway 199 remained fully closed in Del Norte County from Pioneer Road to Oregon Mountain Road (PM 16 to 31) due to the fires. There is no estimated time of reopening. A hard closure is in place on U.S. 199 at the Agriculture Station near the Oregon border. For the latest road conditions please visit quickmap.dot. ca.gov Follow w i l d f i re developments at currypilot. com and in the Wednesday print editions of The Pilot.

The Port of Brookings Harbor is about to launch a five-year dredging project to free the basins of more than 38,000 cubic yards of sediment accumulation deposited because of winter rains following the Chetco Bar fire. This perfect storm of circumstances, with the fire denuding vast forested acreage, deposited more than ten-times the typical amount of deposit leaving the basins of the port with some areas unusable, grounding boats and docks at zero low tide. “Without this dredging all the boats that come in off the ocean… park in a slip, utilize our launch ramp or haul-out facilities would continue to struggle with high sediment volume. We’d need to continue to close docks down, and the port would continue to struggle financially. Everything that people love down here is impacted by this.” Travis Webster, Manager of the Port of Brookings Harbor told the Pilot. “Right now, when a boat wants to come in, we need to put them somewhere, no matter what the tide, so that the boat will stay floating. We have to juggle slips based on the size and depth of that vessel.” Webster said. Funding Port management has been planning and engineering this essential maintenance since 2019. The port will use a

$1,835,000 grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) toward a total budget of $2,447,000 that will allow the port to purchase its own dredging equipment to immediately clear the two basins of about 19,000 cubic yards each, and a further 100,000 cubic yards after the initial fiveyear project is complete. Previously the port needed to use state or other rented dredging equipment. Most of the dredging equipment used until now has been heavy duty diesel and hydraulic-oildependent machinery, with the allied contaminants. The new machine the port is purchasing will utilize electric pumps and motors powered by an letric generator, eliminating most of the limitations of the older gear. This new design also allows the dredge to move efficiently through the harbor, controlled by a sole operator on the docks via remote control, as opposed to a crew on-board a barge. Sediment deposit and treatment plant The sediment, an aggregate of sand, soil, and mud, removed from the basins will be deposited into an area the port has laid out, near the ice plant, between the two basins will be fed by a pipeline from the dredge. There the aggregate will dewater, to be repurposed to other uses such as concrete component or similar applications . See PORT, Page 10

Phone Number: 541-813-1717 • Address: 519 Chetco Ave, Ste 7, Brookings, 97415 • Email: Circulation@CountryMedia.net

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