Laurel Krause, who has been blogging about wave energy for more than a year from her Fort Bragg home, is getting out from behind the computer screen to try to make a splash on the streets this Saturday.
Krause, 53, wants locals to support a moratorium on wave energy permits until a process for local input can be devised.
She has plastered announcements on local telephone poles and listserves up and down the coast for the Mendocino Wave Energy Moratorium March & Meeting at Fort Bragg Town Hall starting at 11 a.m.
Krause has documented the progress of the wave energy issue on her blog/Website and has been surprised to learn how local waters can be controlled from Washington, D.C.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, recently denied tardy efforts by the City of Fort Bragg and County of Mendocino to have a direct role in Pacific Gas & Electric”s three-year exclusive study off Fort Bragg, telling the agencies to wait three years until a license is issued. Licenses last for up to 50 years.
City Council action Monday
At Monday”s Fort Bragg City Council meeting, the council directed staff to prepare an appeal of FERC”s denial of intervenor status for the city and an appeal of the issuance of the preliminary permit.
Fourth District Supervisor Kendall Smith, who has led efforts at the county level, made a presentation to the council Monday night about local and state agencies being excluded by FERC.
The council also directed contact with U.S. Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein and the state attorney general”s office, in an effort to broaden the public process into wave energy permitting, said City Manager Linda Ruffing.
The city will also contact the California Coastal Commission, State Lands Commission and the Department of Fish & Game, requesting that they not grant any permits to FERC unless the Fort Bragg and other local stakeholders such as the county and FISH, a local fishermen”s group, are granted intervenor status in a timely manner, Ruffing said.
The council also encouraged PG&E to present their draft 45-day work plan to the council and community prior to the April 30 deadline for submittal to FERC.
Citizen Krause
“The wheels of wave energy development on our coast continue to turn without any local resident input,” Krause said. “If we don”t start doing something now, one day soon we could turn around and see wave farms off our coast. Local residents want to participate in this process as it”s our coast … but there”s no way for us to voice our concerns.”
Krause came to the area after she visited Fort Bragg for the Whale Festival in 2004 and “fell in love with the town.” She says before that she lived in the Bay Area for over 30 years mostly working in and around Silicon Valley at high-tech start-up companies in sales and marketing.
“I remember a friend mentioning that the mill had recently closed, and I thought it would be awesome to see this town reborn into a thriving, healthy, prosperous small California coastal town. Later that year I moved up here and have been living just north of Fort Bragg since October 2004,” she said.
In September she started the blog/Website at www.mendocinocoastcurrent.wordpress.com.
“The idea was to create an Internet space where Mendocino Coast residents could read about local news and technology information as it relates to wave energy development on our coast. Since then, PG&E, GreenWave, FERC, the City of Fort Bragg and Mendocino County have provided phenomenal fodder on this very important topic,” she said.
In February her Website first informed fishermen in the San Luis Obispo area that GreenWave had filed for permits off both Mendocino and San Luis Obispo. That story had been broken earlier by The Mendocino Beacon.
“Seems GreenWave applied for a FERC permit off their coast, and fishermen in SLO were starting to get nervous about the future of their coastline,” she said.
Like many locals, Krause has a dream for the old Georgia Pacific oceanfront mill site.
“I realized that a portion of the mill site could become a great place for a cleantech” think tank, a research and development center for clean technology development,” she said. “It occurred to me that we could transform the mill site into generating electricity for our community ? and also a new industry to employ people here.”
“It could bring new industry and employment to Fort Bragg — testing and developing clean technologies like solar, wind, biomass, desalination ? even wave energy,” she said.
Krause is looking for volunteers to act as march monitors. She can be reached at 357-2855.
