Amid an upwelling of Native opposition to plans to build offshore wind farms, including one off the coast of Eureka, United States Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and North Coast Congressmember Jared Huffman will be visiting Humboldt Bay later this week, in part to meet with local tribes and hear their concerns.
Reached this morning to ask about growing tribal opposition to federal plans to build a floating, deep water wind farm 21 miles west of Humboldt Bay — the latest of which came from the Trinidad Rancheria — Huffman said he remains committed to both pushing offshore wind forward but addressing tribal concerns, believing the two are not mutually exclusive.
“I don’t support a project that runs roughshod over tribes, the environment or any of our other values,” Huffman told the Journal. “The reason I support this offshore wind project is because it can be done in a way that I think supports those values and, really, enhances them. I think this is more a conversation about how to do this project rather than whether to do this project.”
Huffman’s comments came a day after the Trinidad Rancheria issued a press release announcing its tribal council had approved a resolution officially opposing offshore wind, making it the third local tribe to do so, along with the Bear River Band of the Rohnerville Rancheria and the Yurok Tribe. In the release, the Trinidad Rancheria also expressed support for the resolution passed by the National Congress of American Indians in February calling on the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to halt all scoping and permitting activities for offshore wind until completion of a transparent process “adequately protecting tribal environments and sovereign interests” is developed and implemented.
“The Trinidad Rancheria stands in solidarity with other local tribes in opposition of offshore wind projects until there is shared tribal jurisdictional authority over, and tribal management of, offshore renewable energy activities,” the Trinidad Rancheria press release states. “There is insufficient scientific research on the adverse impacts associated with the floating wind turbines and platforms, the effects to marine life from the subsea transmission cables and the overland transmission lines, and there has been minimal effort to consult with Tribes on this project that would have massive impacts on our ancestral lands and waters. We have significant concerns regarding the impact to view shed from sacred cultural sites and the impacts to the cultural landscape overall. Additionally, this project is not benefiting the local community and instead asks us yet again to sacrifice our cultural and marine resources for the benefit of communities far from home.”
Earlier this month, in announcing its opposition to the project, the Yurok Tribe, the largest tribe in the state, highlighted three areas of concern. First, it contends the 900-foot-tall wind turbines “will indelibly tarnish” sacred sites from the coast to the high country once they are floating offshore. Second, the tribe contends there is “insufficient research” on potential environmental impacts of the project. Third, the tribe charges the federal government hasn’t recognized the tribe’s “unceded ocean territory or its sovereign authority to determine whether and how this territory should be developed.”
Just days after the Yurok Tribe’s announcement, the Bear River Band of the Rohnerville Rancheria followed suit, announcing its opposition due to “insufficient” scientific review, impacts on view sheds and the sacrifice of local resources for the benefit of added “electrical capacity for large cities in Central and Southern California.”
Subsidiaries of RWE Renewables and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners combined to bid more than $330 million for two leases to build floating wind farms off the coast of Humboldt County in 2022 and are currently doing site assessment and survey work, including environmental and cultural impact analysis, and operational planning. Once complete, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management will then conduct an environmental review of the company’s plans, which will then also have to go through an extensive permitting process and get the approval of the California Coastal Commission before construction begins.
If finally approved, the project would rely on relatively new technology to tether 15 or so of these floating turbines — 900-foot-tall structures affixed to partially submerged barges, each of which will be roughly the size of the Arcata Plaza — to the ocean floor, some 2,500 below. The turbines would generate electricity that would be transported through underwater cables to an onshore substation. While they’re nearly as tall as the Eifel Tower, and would loom prominently while in Humboldt Bay for construction or maintenance, officials have said the turbines would be barely visible from shore with the naked eye once placed in the farm area.
Huffman, who has been a vocal supporter of the project and recently helped the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District secure a $427 million Department of Transportation grant to fund redeveloping the old pulp mill site on the Samoa Peninsula into a heavy lift terminal to service the massive infrastructure needed for offshore wind, says he is intent on re-engaging with local tribes in an effort to address their concerns.
“I always take their concerns seriously, and I always want to make sure we are honoring tribal sovereignty and listening to tribal perspectives to the greatest extent possible including tribes and partnering with them,” he said. “And I’m sure there’s room for improvement on all of that here. But I don’t think that means offshore wind can’t work for the entire community, including tribes, and I’m determined to make that happen.”
Huffman said some of the tribes’ concerns are “very legitimate” and currently being studied, noting that he wouldn’t support a project that might “wreck marine habitat or negatively impact salmon runs.” But Huffman said he’s also keenly aware that this project and others like it are an integral piece to state and federal efforts to combat the global climate crisis, which is real and unrelenting.
“We have a planet that we have to save, and that’s the big picture that can’t be obscured by any other details of this project, because offshore wind is critical to decarbonizing the fifth largest economy in the world,” he said. “There’s just no way you’re going to do that without offshore wind.”
Huffman also touts the potential economic opportunity the proposed wind farm presents for the region, noting it could create 5,000 “good-paying jobs” with a host of reverberating fiscal impacts.
Haaland, who is native to the Pueblo of Laguna Tribe in New Mexico and is the first Native cabinet secretary in the nation’s history, has been both a vocal supporter of offshore wind and a strong advocate for Native interests, strengthening her department’s policies and procedures for tribal consultations. Huffman says he’s hopeful she can help bridge the burgeoning offshore wind divide, starting with their upcoming visit to Humboldt Bay and meetings with tribal leaders.
“I think it’s important for them to hear from the highest ranking Indigenous person in U.S. history, and I know she supports this offshore wind project in a big way, and no one can question her commitment to honoring tribes and sovereignty,” Huffman said. “My hope is that she is the kind of honest broker who can help keep things on track.”
This article appears in The Foilies 2024.
Now it’s 5,000 jobs? For how long? Sure.