Today I picked up the Oregonian and breezed through the international and national news. In the opinion section I found a piece by two scientists who are working on the Oregon Coast and trying to help us wade through the choices and consequences stemming from proposals to put wave energy buoys on the coast.
Wave energy presents an interesting option that is being pursued off England’s coast as a way to provide for energy consumption — but how will it impact the fish and fisherman who depend on these waters.
These wave energy “buoys” are massive (72 feet tall and 35 tons)
, and from what I can gather require long cables and massive anchors on the sea floor.
Well, energy involves a series of half choices, perhaps some of our options are even quarter choices. As the old saying goes, there is no free lunch, and if there was one it got eaten a long time ago.
Ecologists Mark Hixon and Brian Tissot point out the costs of trying to combine energy develop and marine reserves. I encourage you to check their opinion piece on Marine Reserves out and weigh in.
For me it is much simpler, a reserve is just that – a place that is set aside to be protected. We could redefine the English dictionary and the word “reserve” to mean a place that is set aside except for any use that we want to make of it, but then where would that leave us aside from making the dictionary useless.
We need truth in advertising for our marine reserves and balanced mix of reserves, fishing grounds and, perhaps, coastal energy production. We cannot continue to give with one hand while taking away with the other.