Peter drops ther s but
2012
2013
2012 Power-purchase agreement changes.
2014
2014 Legal challenges in U.S. District and Federal Appeals courts are dismissed; with New Bedford port still under construction, Cape Wind signs lease option at Quonset Point.
2013 Transmission cable route changes in response to opposition from town of Narragansett; state approves new landing site. 2012 Deepwater applies for state and federal permits.
2015
Andy Lipsky displays a large monkfish, one of the myriad species common near the Deepwater site.
2015 Both companies project their wind farms will be running
2014 CRMC and state DEM issue approvals; lead agency Army Corps expected to grant federal approval.
convergence with what tribes know and what scientists know. It gives you some common ground.” If all this sounds like an unusual tale of harmony, that’s because it is. And now URI is busy exporting its model. “Our team has been invited to provide marine spatial planning assistance all over the world,” Jennifer McCann ’94, director of U.S. Coastal Programs at the Coastal Resources Center, and the SAMP’s director of policy and outreach. “We are trusted to give the best information and advice, and that’s why my phone continually rings.” — Ellen Liberman
Fishing for Impacts
O
nce a month, Andy Lipsky ’03 hops a trawler out of Galilee to go fishing. Lipsk , a graduate of URI’s marine science and watershed hydrology master’s program, is heading a fi e-year effort to determine what effect the fi e-turbine Block Island wind farm might have on fisheries and other marine li e. Although the state’s commercial fishery has shrunk, it till represents a sizeable chunk of Rhode Island’s economy, generating more than $150 million in sales and supporting nearly 5,000 jobs. The effects of the massive structures on a livelihood already threatened by climate change, overfishing and egulations is a critical state issue. Deepwater Wind hired SeaPlan, an ocean science and policy group, to continue the data collection and analysis started by the Ocean SAMP. Lipsky, a senior partner at the Boston-based nonprofit, is orking with commercial fishermen o design studies like a survey of the lobster populations and a commercial finfish diet an ysis. He’s done stints with NGOs, state and tribal governments, and two years at the White House developing national ocean policy, but says this gig is unique. “This isn’t just a government-led deal. It’s a collaborative process where two ocean industries came together to figu e out how they could share ocean space,” he says. “At the last hearing members of the fishing ommunity stood up to support the project. We’ve achieved a level of cooperation that many projects don’t.” While SeaPlan fi es its attention below the water line, Tetra Tech, an international engineering and technical consulting firm, s ans the skies for the wind farm’s potential impacts on bird and bat populations. Deepwater Wind retained the company to manage related environmental investigations and permitting. Jennifer A. Daniels ’99, the company’s director of offshore energy and a marine resource development and aquatic technologies graduate, says “the SAMP consolidated all that data in one place and was an excellent tool,” that helped avoid “the battle of the experts” that ensues when underlying environmental science is funded by a developer. For Daniels, the project was also a professional homecoming. Fifteen years after graduating from what was then a new major, she attends meetings with some of the same faculty who helped launch her successful marine science career. “URI set me up on a wonderful path,” she says. “It’s fun to see my professors again.” ■
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