The California Coastal Commission approved the Statewide Strategy for the Coexistence of California Fishing Communities and Offshore Wind Energy, and local organizations are speaking up for and against it.
This follows a moratorium, pausing wind energy projects, issued by the Trump Administration in January of 2025 and struck down by a federal judge in December.
“Fisheries perspective and sort of the industry folks, everybody is pretty happy with how the Coastal Commission is landing on that one," said Michael Clovin of the Enviormental Defense Fund.
“We’ve butt heads with the California Coastal Commission, we do not agree with their stance on offshore wind at all," said Mandy Davis, president of REACT Alliance.
The Coastal Commission’s statewide strategy serves as a guide for how developers, tribes, fishing communities and agencies should work together on offshore wind developments.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) states that the Morro Bay offshore wind development has been in progress since 2016.
The wind turbines would be located about 20 miles off the coast and be floating due to the water’s depth.
Local organizations joined the National Wildlife Federation for a briefing Thursday on what responsible wind energy could look like on the Central Coast.
“You would not be able to tell that these things are floating in the water; the technology, they look so extraordinarily stable," Clovin said.
Davis told KSBY News the cables connecting the substations can be harmful.
“It creates this web of cables that whales can potentially be caught up in, that the fishermen have to avoid,” Davis said.
Members of the briefing said the project could help create more jobs on the Central Coast.
“We go beyond construction to think about the manufacturing and logistics, operations, maintenance, transmission, and everything that comes from creation of new jobs," said Jeremy Goldberg from the Central Coast Labor Council.
Davis doesn’t agree.
“These labor unions want the jobs and they’re pushing really hard for this, good-paying jobs for a very short period of time," Davis said. "So to maintain, once those things are built, those jobs are going bye bye."
There are three leases for 376 square miles off the North Coast.
There is no current timeline for when projects could move forward.
