Massachusetts’ Ocean Plan and Wave and Tidal Projects

Back in June, Massachusetts released its Draft Ocean Management Plan, which covers waters up to three miles offshore. The plan identifies specific sites suitable for commercial and community sized offshore wind projects and designates a large multi-use area of ocean that can accommodate a wide range of projects including wave and tidal. But the plan’s focus is largely on wind, since authors found that wave and tidal projects are not commercially viable in the areas covered by the plan.

Massachusetts’ plan, which is now open for comment, is being critiqued on several fronts. Over at Mass High Tech , attorney Robert Ruth writes that the plan “is far better for some businesses than others.” For Ruth, wind is a winner, since the plan provides clear guidance on what small scale wind projects must do to win approval and designates two key areas for large wind. But other users are left out:

Unfortunately, other industries get no such helping hand. The plan designates a large multi-use area of ocean that can accommodate a wide range of development projects, but it withholds the presumption of approval offered to wind projects. As written, the plan simply gives industries such as aquaculture, transmission cables, fuel pipelines, and sand and gravel extraction a complex set of maps, a series of concerns and a description of hurdles to clear.

Massachusetts’ neighbor Rhode Island wasn’t all that impressed with Massachusetts’ ocean plan either, for different reasons. As described here, Rhode Island is midway through a far more ambitious mapping program, which examines and map uses off Rhode Island’s coast up to twenty miles offshore. Rhode Island officials say that they mapped waters within state boundaries (i.e., up to three miles offshore) twenty years ago.