In accordance with notice to members of the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council’s Ocean Special Area Management Plan (SAMP) subcommittee, a meeting of the subcommittee was held on Thursday, January 21, 2010 at 4 p.m. at the University of Rhode Island (URI) Coastal Institute large conference room in Narragansett, R.I.

MEMBERS PRESENT
Michael M. Tikoian, Chairman
Paul Lemont

STAFF PRESENT
Laura Ricketson-Dwyer, CRMC Public Educator and Information Coordinator
John Longo, CRMC Deputy Legal Counsel

Others present
Jen McCann, URI/Coastal Resources Center and RI Sea Grant
Stephen Olsen, URI/Coastal Resources Center Director
Sam De Bow, URI GSO
Kate Manning Butler, URI/Coastal Resources Center
Wendy Waller, Save The Bay
Don Pryor

Call to order. M. Tikoian called the meeting to order at 4:10 p.m.

Item 1. Approval of previous meeting minutes: The minutes were approved unanimously with one minor change.

Item 2. Updates: M. Tikoian said for the record that G. Fugate was on leave for personal reasons, and then asked J. McCann and S. De Bow to provide updates. J. McCann told the subcommittee that they were given a new document timeline, and that on chapter production, the team is in good shape. Chapter 600: Recreation and Tourism went through the regulatory process and is being held for final adoption until all SAMP chapters are ready for adoption. The Marine Transportation, Navigation and Infrastructure chapter will be on the agenda for the January 27 full Council meeting and the following chapter will be Chapter 1000: Existing Policies, she said. It has been submitted to the TAC for review within 10 days; J. McCann said she expects comments by January 31, and then the chapter will be presented at the next stakeholder meeting. The next two chapters are Ecology (to the TAC on January 25) and Renewable Energy, which is moving through the informal review process. The ecology chapter, J. McCann said, will be difficult because there is not much information in the SAMP area in terms of ecology. The renewable energy chapter might also be difficult because many of the other sections are not yet complete. For example, she said, a section on design standards for wind turbines can’t yet be completed because no design standards exist yet. M. Tikoian asked if engineering designs would be included in that chapter. J. McCann said no; it will have standards. The standards will provide developers guidance – for example, how they should be constructed in order to last 100 years, what color they should be painted, where the lights should be, she said. M. Tikoian commented that the chapter, then, will not include items like the tensile strength of the structure. J. McCann confirmed this. M. Tikoian said that global climate change, he would think, is a moving target so how can a chapter be written on that subject? J. McCann explained that Pam Rubinoff and Jim Tobey are working on it. CRC has the global climate change initiative so we’ve been working on this a lot, she said. We’re looking at current climate change and future projections, J. McCann said. This is another difficult chapter to write, she said; there’s never been a global climate change chapter in any SAMP.

P. Lemont said that he didn’t agree with the concept of climate change and global warming. The climate has changed since the beginning of time, he said. P. Lemont said that he would object to any conclusion of the existence of global warming. J. McCann told P. Lemont that he will have a chance to say that and the CRC staff will be prepared to have that discussion with you. J. McCann told the subcommittee that a brochure was printed on the latest lecture series, similar to the one URI/CRC/RISG did last year. M. Tikoian and P. Lemont said they would like copies.

Item 3. Latest period progress report: J. McCann told the subcommittee that the report is not due to EDC for a few weeks, but because of the new reporting system, it saves the team a lot of work. J. McCann presented the report from October 1 – December 31, 2009 to the subcommittee. M. Tikoian asked if the subcommittee would have time to look at it in more detail between now and the due date. J. McCann said that yes, the subcommittee could review it again at the Feb. 4 subcommittee meeting.

M. Tikoian asked if the CRMC is posting the EDC reports online anywhere. J. McCann said that it is our formal report to EDC, so thus far, they had not been published on any web sites, and added that it would be easy to do. P. Lemont said that the reports don’t need to be online to be public documents, but M. Tikoian said they would be more accessible that way. M. Tikoian asked J. McCann to check with EDC to make sure posting the online was agreeable to them. M. Tikoian said he’d like them to be posted in a continued effort to be transparent.

J. McCann told the subcommittee that the financial figures are also ahead of schedule, for December 31. K. Manning Butler told the subcommittee that the figures show SAMP progress fiscally, as well as completed work. At the last subcommittee meeting, K. Manning Butler said, it was requested that encumbrances and total work done would be reflected, so that is shown for December. M. Tikoian asked her if the figures were close to the budget. K. Manning Butler said that the report was based on the $6.6 million. M. Tikoian asked her if it would all be on-budget. K. Manning Butler said yes. J. McCann explained that URI requires accounting for everything – amounts as small as $1,000 – so that all funding is appropriately spent and on-time. S. De Bow said that the team has a little less than 6 months left and the progress shows 67 percent completion. J. McCann said that the DOE spending is lower because the team has more time to spend it. P. Lemont said the report looks good. S. De Bow said that the quarterly report matches these figures.

M. Tikoian commented that the CRMC and URI have done several of these SAMPs and that we periodically try to look at them. Narrow River and Greenwich Bay SAMP – we did an overhaul of those, he said. He asked if the team thought it would be appropriate to do the same here. J. McCann said that in her experience, the SAMPs are updated very frequently; Jim Boyd of CRMC is doing that now with the Metro Bay SAMP and Greenwich Bay SAMP. She told the subcommittee that it is their decision, but also dependent on funding. The Metro Bay SAMP needed to be overhauled, she said, but I see the CRMC staff doing a great job.

M. Tikoian said that perhaps if we formalize an overhaul and put it in budget, perhaps it would help for an overhaul in the future. P. Lemont said that the CRMC has always said that this and other SAMPs are living documents and we encourage the public and others to let CRMC know when something needs to be changed. He asked J. McCann if the same would be the case with the Ocean SAMP, particularly the fishing industry. J. McCann said yes, and that creating a formal committee (being proposed as a policy) might be appropriate. It’s clear that the CRMC might want to organize a fishing technical committee; the fishing industry really wants to engage and support this SAMP, she said. S. De Bow referenced an aforementioned grant opportunity as a possible method for further research and monitoring after any wind farms are built.

M. Tikoian said that he spoke to Dennis Nixon, and would like to formally congratulate him on his book and the book signing.

P. Lemont made a motion to move acceptance of the financial report for December, and the subcommittee voted unanimously to do so. J. McCann added that the progress report will be on the next agenda. M. Tikoian asked if there would be a chapter for the next meeting. J. McCann said the existing policies chapter might be ready.

P. Lemont made a motion to adjourn, and the meeting was adjourned at 4:30 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Laura Ricketson-Dwyer

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