Ocean SAMP updating process underway By KENDRA LOLIO NARRAGANSETT - The Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC), Rhode: Island Sea Grant, and the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oce hy (GSO) held a Kick-off meeting last Thursday to begin the first round of updates to the. state's ‘Ocean Special Area Management Plan (SAMP) since its inception in Cctober 2010. ‘The Ocean SAMP is a document that recognizes and establishes best practices for regulatory ocean planning procedures throughout the state and dictates how the state's offshore waters ean and should be large scale ocean projects to be consistent ‘vith both state and federal agencies, leading to a new 4-phase regulatory Peocess: a site assessment plan, & con- struction operation plan and site review, the CVA stage, and the leasing stage. Fugate said that the new process has increased regulation for projects. like Deepwater Wind, whieh before the plan ‘was implemented would not have had as ‘much scrupulous review hy regulatory agencies, “There is much more monitoring on Deepwater than was ever placed on Cape Wind,” Fugate explained. “We're putting ‘together a monitoring plan and. BOEM (Bureau of Ocean Energy Management) ‘used, The document most recently served as a guide for the CRMC's approval of the Deepwater Wind Block Island wind farm project. “The Ocean SAMP is. interesting because it created a good fecting about the whole planaing process,” said CRMC Executive Director Grover Fugate. “It has created a very good feeling in the state about moving forward because everyone had a say init and thot input is reflected in the plan. It's also given Rhode Island a lot of exposure,” be con- tinved. “It is being used now as a plat- form for training.” Fugate explained that the plan has overhauled the permitting process for is looking at supplementing it with real fie meballesalg goign 7740 Glo. meters offshore. They're looking at doing a lot of acoustic work to get an idea of the bottom and sub-bottom conditions of that area to move forward with a construction and operation plan.” URI Direcior of U.S. Coastal Programs Jennifer McCann, who wis one of the leaders in the development of the original Ocean Samp. explained the importance of keeping the plan up-to- date “We're celebrating five years of hav- ing fully adopted the Ocean SAMP. Now SAMP, page 3-4.\we're able to e-engage in stakeholder process she said, “People are depending on the Ocean SAMP and they're depending of the information, IF a developer says they want to da something in a certain area, they ask what the SAMP says. We have to keep it up to date or we'll lose everything, ‘McCann also said thatthe updating process will not be as lengthy as the original development plan. “This process won't Beas long,” McCann said. "We are going tobe using the standard principles we used when we stated the plan and we want to update i in a transpareal way. Adaptive management is what we're doing here, and we're doing it to keep Rhode Island in the driver's seat.” ‘Rhode Island Sea Grant Director Dennis Nixon warmed that the plan should seriously consider the: implications of having a turbine wind farm sf the coast of Rhode Island "Be prepsred forthe impact of wind turbine turism,” Nixon ssid. Before you know itthey'ce going to be chartering vessels to take 400 people to look atthe new turbines. I think i's going to be a new industry for Rhode Island” “The current focus areas for updates to the plan include increased ecological protection, wore identi- fication of fishing hot spats through vescel monitoring systems (WMS) data climate change, and species shifting to the North East. The plan updates are expected to be completed by October of tis year