May 12, 2022 — Commercial fish and seafood workers rallied along the Coos Bay boardwalk on Tuesday taking a stand against proposed wind farms that are slated for the Southern Oregon coast.
The rally was hosted on the second day of an “Offshore Wind Industry Fly-In” held just down the street at the Mill Casino. The industry conference, hosted by three non-profits with missions dedicated to developing energy along the pacific and Oregon coast, is described as an event that “will bring leadership from the floating offshore wind industry to the coast of Oregon for direct engagement with state and local leadership,” with the goal of “charting the course for Oregon’s first 3 gigawatts of offshore energy.”
This comes less than two weeks after the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announced its call areas in Brookings and Coos Bay for offshore energy projects it has been in talks with Oregon about. Tickets for the five-day fly-in event were sold for between $1000 and $1500.
One of the rally’s organizers, Lori Steele, executive director of the West Coast Seafood Processors Association said the event was, at least in part, held as a way to show energy companies and leaders at the conference that “there’s already a very, very big industry here for seafood and fishing,” and that “we are here to stay.”