In accordance with notice of the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council’s Planning & Procedures subcommittee, a meeting was held on Tuesday, June 23, 2020 at 4:00 p.m. utilizing the Zoom Platform. All members, staff and participants were present on Zoom.

MEMBERS PRESENT
Jennifer Cervenka, Chair
Don Gomez
Joy Montanaro
Angelo Liberti, RIDEM

STAFF PRESENT
Jeff Willis, Acting Executive Director
James Boyd, Coastal Policy Analyst
Anthony DeSisto, Legal Counsel

 

Call to Order. Ms. Cervenka called the subcommittee meeting to order at 4:00 p.m.

Ms. Cervenka called for a motion to approve the minutes of the January 14, 2020 subcommittee meeting.

Mr. Gomez seconded by Mr. Cervenka moved to approve the meeting minutes of January 14, 2020. All voted in favor of the motion with Ms. Montanaro and Mr. Liberti abstaining.

Item 5 – Status and Update: Development of Offshore Wind Energy Export Cable Corridors within State waters regulations. J. Willis and J. Boyd explained the status of the development of regulations addressing export cables from offshore wind energy projects within state waters. J. Boyd explained federal consistency regulations for and authorities of the CRMC for offshore wind energy projects and that these regulations are to address state requirements for export cables entering state waters. He also explained current programmatic authorities as well as the current state of federal consistency oversight as the NOAA Office for Ocean and Coastal Management. J. Boyd explained how the staff has been meeting with a ‘cable corridor group’ for about a year and that the group and staff is looking at potential corridors into Narragansett Bay where coastal resource issues can be minimized. He also noted that staff and the group were waiting on Ørsted to supply additional information about their Revolution Wind project cable corridor issues since it will have its export cables enter state waters and make their proposed landfall at Quonset. That information has yet to come however. Additionally he noted that since COVID these meetings will need to be on the Zoom platform once Ørsted supplies that information.

Mr. Gomez asked if there were any impacts to Cox’s Ledge. J. Boyd explained Lease exclusion zones. Ms. Cervenka asked how corridors came to be. J. Boyd explained that staff learned that the Ørsted Revolution Wind project export cables would make landfall in state waters at about the same time that staff was hearing about the potential of a Massachusetts wind energy project seeking to run its cables through Narragansett Bay and make landfall in Fall River through the Sakonnet River and Mt. Hope Bay. Staff felt that it was a much better scenario to pre-manage where these cables could go rather than have an application drive the process of where such could be located. That also led to the development of the in-the-planning-stages Narragansett Bay SAMP to be (and is) delayed so that its first task can be the development of regulations on wind energy project export cable corridors. Ms. Cervenka asked about the membership of the cable working group. J. Boyd stated that among others it consists of the representatives from the commercial fishing and shellfishing industries, energy development, user groups from Narragansett Bay, NGOs, Pilots, Navy, USCG. Ms. Cervenka also asked if a cable corridor could accommodate one or more actual cables. J. Boyd offered that a corridor would take into account the need for more than one cable but likely no more than two.

Ms. Cervenka noted that there were two members of the public attending the Zoom meeting and asked if either would like to speak on the matter. Christian Cappizzo, counsel to Anbaric, an energy transmission systems company, introduced himself and Payson Whitney, consultant to Anbaric from the ESS Group, and explained what Anbaric is and how they could assist with any management planning of the cable corridors. Ms. Cervenka thanked the two gentlemen for their interest and participation.

Ms. Cervenka asked if the subcommittee members had any other questions and hearing none thanked staff for the update. She then called for an adjournment.

ADJOURNMENT. Mr. Gomez, seconded by Mr. Liberti, moved to adjourn. All voted in favor of the motion and the meeting was adjourned at 4:20 p.m.

 

Respectfully submitted by

Jeffrey M Willis, Deputy Director

 

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