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Offshore Wind Moves Forward on California Coast

Christine Heinrichs
News Feed
Tuesday, November 22, 2022

Progress continues on the controversial proposal to install a multi-billion dollar wind farm off the California coast. The five project areas will provide future power needs equivalent to the electricity produced by Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, which was on schedule to be retired until this past legislative session. On November 21, PG&E received a federal grant of $1.1 billion to keep it operating for another five years. California’s deep waters, 3,000 feet, are three times as deep as any floating wind turbines have been launched. Forging into the unknown presents a number of concerns and promises that engineers, officials and citizens are weighing out. Leases to Outer Continental Land, needed to locate as many as 1,300 mega-sized wind turbines, will be auctioned off December 6. The process for building 2-5 GigaWatt offshore wind projects, producing more electricity than Diablo Canyon, gets underway with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s lease sale auction starting at 7 a.m. Pacific. They will warm up with a practice auction the day before. The auction could take two days to reach a conclusion and settle on five winning bidders. The lease sale includes three Morro Bay areas, (80,062 acres, 80,418 acres, 80,418 acres), and two Humboldt areas, (673,338 acres and 69,031 acres) totaling 373,268 acres of the Outer Continental Shelf, 20-30 miles offshore. Forty-three bidders have qualified and ponied up the $5 million bid deposit to participate.‍ Bidding credits‍ Bids will be considered not only on amount of money, but also on how they propose to use the bidding credits. Bidders can qualify for up to 20 percent credit by committing to investing in workforce training and supply chain development. They can also get up to five percent credit for a Lease Area Use Community Benefit Agreement and five percent for a General Community Benefit Agreement. CBAs are intended to mitigate potential impacts on- and offshore to communities, tribal, or other stakeholder groups and may assist fishing and related industries by supporting their resilience and ability to adapt to impacts that may arise from the development of the lease area. A Lease Area Use CBA would be between the lessee and a community or stakeholder group “whose use of the geographic space of the Lease Area, or whose use of resources harvested from that geographic space, is directly impacted by the Lessee’s potential offshore wind development. ”The General CBA would be with communities, tribes, or stakeholder groups that are expected to be affected by the potential impacts on the marine, coastal, and/or human environment from activities resulting from lease development that are not otherwise addressed by the Lease Area Use CBA. Eric Endersby, Morro Bay’s harbor director, sees how those credits can help the waterfront. “We are the closest port to the Morro Bay area, and we are a protected port, so it makes sense for the operations and maintenance boats to be coming and going out of Morro Bay,” he said in an interview. “There would be a lot of fuel sales, a lot of high-dollar, high-skilled jobs. The cable is coming into Morro Bay, through the grid system, so there’ll be that aspect to it. We see a revitalization of our working waterfront.” Other ocean users The leases require consideration of other users, from commercial fishing and Department of Defense national security to vessel speed requirements, use of low-energy geophysical survey equipment and coordinating with the Coastal Commission on plan submissions. Bidders know that BOEM has no authority to issue leases in national marine sanctuaries. The Morro Bay wind areas are adjacent to the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary and the proposed Chumash Heritage NMS. Violet Sage Walker, chair of the Northern Chumash Tribal Council, wrote in an op-ed in The Tribune, “The Northern Chumash Tribal Council advocates for marine conservation, equitable mitigation measures and fair community benefits. We believe offshore wind must coexist and cooperate with marine protections, and we see this as a unique opportunity for a collaborative effort, not a combative one.” Frankie Myers, vice chair of the Yurok Tribe in Northern California, said at the Floating Wind USA 2022 conference in San Francisco, that the ocean is the last place his people have to pray. “We can’t go any further west,” he said. “What will our descendants see? Another colonial resource or a collaborative partner?” Lines on a map are abstractions that are irrelevant to fisheries and tribal lands. Full details are in the Final Sale Notice National and state goals The West Coast Floating Offshore Wind projects, with a goal of 4.5 GW of power by 2030, are part of the Biden administration’s goal for Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad, a commitment to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030 and at least 25 gigawatts of onshore renewable energy by 2025.The state of California has set a target of 2-5 GW of offshore wind power by 2030 and 25 GW by 2045. Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant’s two units combined produce 2.2 GW. Although intended to be retired in 2024 and 2025, in 2022 the legislature extended the plant’s licenses five years. ‍New port terminals needed Ten additional port terminals along California’s coast will be required to support the projects. None of California’s current ports is large enough or strong enough to support the wind turbine staging and fabrication. Terminals may be located in existing ports such as Long Beach and San Francisco, but construction of entirely new ports may be required. ‍Building the turbines Turbines are 1,100 feet tall on a base 425 feet wide. About 1,300 are projected to be installed in the West Coast projects. The size of the turbines presents problems yet unsolved, including moving the assembled turbines from the manufacturing facility into the water. It could take two weeks or longer to tow them out to the site where they will be tethered. The size and complications of constructing the turbines and setting them in place presents risks that are difficult to evaluate and insure. “What keeps me up at night is a project that is uninsurable,” one insurance executive said.‍ Deeper waters, bigger ships Hanson Wood, regional senior vice president for development in the West Region, EDF Renewables, said that although technical lessons have been learned from projects in Asia, there is no precedent for a wind project in California’s depths, around 3,000 feet. The chains tethering the turbines to sea floor anchors could put marine mammals at risk by catching drifting fishing gear and ensnaring them. The area is known as the Blue Serengeti for its migration routes of whales and seals. A ship large enough to transport the turbine parts, in compliance with U.S. Jones Law, is under construction in Texas. The 472-foot-long Charybdis is estimated to cost around $500 million. Humboldt has already received a grant for $10.5 million to renovate its facilities into the Humboldt Bay Offshore Wind Heavy Lift Marine Terminal, which will be capable of handling large heavy cargo vessels, offshore wind floating platform development and integration and decommissioning, and other maritime activities. Developing the Central Coast wind area could create around 15,000 new jobs, according to a report on the economic impact by REACH Central Coast and Cal Poly. Environmental impacts Environmental impacts such as the loss of wind energy that drives the ocean upwelling which is the central feature of ocean ecology in the area remain to be evaluated in the future. The amount of money involved is staggering, hundreds of billions of dollars, so those credits – 20 percent for workforce and supply chain, and five percent each for offshore and onshore impacts – will represent large amounts of money to communities like Morro Bay and Humboldt. It’s not without significant risk, though. In mid-November, Shell, with partners China General Nuclear Power Group and France’s Caisse des dépôts et consignations (CDC) canceled a demonstration floating wind project offshore France. Shell’s statement cited ”technical, commercial and financial challenges” in the execution of the project as the main reasons for the decision to cancel the EUR 300 million, 28.5 MW Groix & Belle-Île pilot wind farm, Le Parisien reports.“ The economic conditions linked to the project have been significantly modified, calling into question, for all the partners of the consortium, the economic viability of the project,” Shell was quoted as saying in a statement. State regulators Representatives of California’s State Lands Commission and the Coastal Commission attended the San Francisco conference, supporting the projects. Governor Gavin Newsom is committed to floating offshore wind and the regulatory agencies are on board. All projects will be subjected to California's notoriously contentious permitting process, but the pressure is on to get turbines in the water by 2030. With the workforce development required – it will take as long as two years to train welders to the skill level needed – new port terminals to be constructed, and techniques for anchoring the turbines in such deep water refined, sussing out the risks of screwing it up is needed. Yurok Vice Chair Myers said, “The path to messing it up is just so wide. ”While the powers behind the idea and the money are moving forward, those communities that will be most affected are watching from the sidelines. “I’m afraid that it will be just such a bright, shiny object that it will distract us from the changes we need to make,” one conference participant said privately. The question of whether this provides the solution California needs for its future power requirements, or if expenses and technical problems overwhelm it remains to be seen. We will keep you posted.

Progress continues on the controversial proposal to install a multi-billion dollar wind farm off the California coast. The five project areas will provide future power needs equivalent to the electricity produced by Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, which was on schedule to be retired until this past legislative session. On November 21, PG&E received a federal grant of $1.1 billion to keep it operating for another five years.

Progress continues on the controversial proposal to install a multi-billion dollar wind farm off the California coast. The five project areas will provide future power needs equivalent to the electricity produced  by Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, which was on schedule to be retired until this past legislative session. On November 21, PG&E received a federal grant of $1.1 billion to keep it operating for another five years. 

California’s deep waters, 3,000 feet, are three times as deep as any floating wind turbines have been launched. Forging into the unknown presents a number of concerns and promises that engineers, officials and citizens are weighing out. Leases to Outer Continental Land, needed to locate as many as 1,300 mega-sized wind turbines, will be auctioned off December 6. 

The process for building 2-5 GigaWatt offshore wind projects, producing more electricity than Diablo Canyon, gets underway with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s lease sale auction starting at 7 a.m. Pacific. They will warm up with a practice auction the day before. The auction could take two days to reach a conclusion and settle on five winning bidders.

The lease sale includes three Morro Bay areas, (80,062 acres, 80,418 acres, 80,418 acres), and two Humboldt areas, (673,338 acres and 69,031 acres) totaling 373,268 acres of the Outer Continental Shelf, 20-30 miles offshore. Forty-three bidders have qualified and ponied up the $5 million bid deposit to participate.

Bidding credits

Bids will be considered not only on amount of money, but also on how they propose to use the bidding credits. Bidders can qualify for up to 20 percent credit by committing to investing in workforce training and supply chain development.

They can also get up to five percent credit for a Lease Area Use Community Benefit Agreement and five percent for a General Community Benefit Agreement. CBAs are intended to mitigate potential impacts on- and offshore to communities, tribal, or other stakeholder groups and may assist fishing and related industries by supporting their resilience and ability to adapt to impacts that may arise from the development of the lease area.

A Lease Area Use CBA would be between the lessee and a community or stakeholder group “whose use of the geographic space of the Lease Area, or whose use of resources harvested from that geographic space, is directly impacted by the Lessee’s potential offshore wind development.”

The General CBA would be with communities, tribes, or stakeholder groups that are expected to be affected by the potential impacts on the marine, coastal, and/or human environment from activities resulting from lease development that are not otherwise addressed by the Lease Area Use CBA.

Eric Endersby, Morro Bay’s harbor director, sees how those credits can help the waterfront. “We are the closest port to the Morro Bay area, and we are a protected port, so it makes sense for the operations and maintenance boats to be coming and going out of Morro Bay,” he said in an interview. “There would be a lot of fuel sales, a lot of high-dollar, high-skilled jobs. The cable is coming into Morro Bay, through the grid system, so there’ll be that aspect to it. We see a revitalization of our working waterfront.”

Other ocean users

The leases require consideration of other users, from commercial fishing and Department of Defense national security to vessel speed requirements, use of low-energy geophysical survey equipment and coordinating with the Coastal Commission on plan submissions. 

Bidders know that BOEM has no authority to issue leases in national marine sanctuaries. The Morro Bay wind areas are adjacent to the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary and the proposed Chumash Heritage NMS.

Violet Sage Walker, chair of the Northern Chumash Tribal Council, wrote in an op-ed in The Tribune, “The Northern Chumash Tribal Council advocates for marine conservation, equitable mitigation measures and fair community benefits. We believe offshore wind must coexist and cooperate with marine protections, and we see this as a unique opportunity for a collaborative effort, not a combative one.”

Frankie Myers, vice chair of the Yurok Tribe in Northern California, said at the Floating Wind USA 2022 conference in San Francisco, that the ocean is the last place his people have to pray. “We can’t go any further west,” he said. “What will our descendants see? Another colonial resource or a collaborative partner?”

Lines on a map are abstractions that are irrelevant to fisheries and tribal lands.

Full details are in the Final Sale Notice

National and state goals

The West Coast Floating Offshore Wind projects, with a goal of 4.5 GW of power by 2030, are part of the Biden administration’s goal for Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad, a commitment to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030 and at least 25 gigawatts of onshore renewable energy by 2025.

The state of California has set a target of 2-5 GW of offshore wind power by 2030 and 25 GW by 2045. Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant’s two units combined produce 2.2 GW. Although intended to be retired in 2024 and 2025, in 2022 the legislature extended the plant’s licenses five years. 

New port terminals needed

Ten additional port terminals along California’s coast will be required to support the projects. None of California’s current ports is large enough or strong enough to support the wind turbine staging and fabrication. Terminals may be located in existing ports such as Long Beach and San Francisco, but construction of entirely new ports may be required. 

Building the turbines

Turbines are 1,100 feet tall on a base 425 feet wide. About 1,300 are projected to be installed in the West Coast projects.  The size of the turbines presents problems yet unsolved, including moving the assembled turbines from the manufacturing facility into the water. It could take two weeks or longer to tow them out to the site where they will be tethered. 

The size and complications of constructing the turbines and setting them in place presents risks that are difficult to evaluate and insure. “What keeps me up at night is a project that is uninsurable,” one insurance executive said.

Deeper waters, bigger ships

Hanson Wood, regional senior vice president for development in the West Region, EDF Renewables, said that although technical lessons have been learned from projects in Asia, there is no precedent for a wind project in California’s depths, around 3,000 feet.

The chains tethering the turbines to sea floor anchors could put marine mammals at risk by catching drifting fishing gear and ensnaring them. The area is known as the Blue Serengeti for its migration routes of whales and seals.

A ship large enough to transport the turbine parts, in compliance with U.S. Jones Law, is under construction in Texas. The 472-foot-long Charybdis is estimated to cost around $500 million.

Humboldt has already received a grant for $10.5 million to renovate its facilities into the Humboldt Bay Offshore Wind Heavy Lift Marine Terminal, which will be capable of handling large heavy cargo vessels, offshore wind floating platform development and integration and decommissioning, and other maritime activities.

Developing the Central Coast wind area could create around 15,000 new jobs, according to a report on the economic impact by REACH Central Coast and Cal Poly. 

Environmental impacts

Environmental impacts such as the loss of wind energy that drives the ocean upwelling which is the central feature of ocean ecology in the area remain to be evaluated in the future. 

The amount of money involved is staggering, hundreds of billions of dollars, so those credits – 20 percent for workforce and supply chain, and five percent each for offshore and onshore impacts – will represent large amounts of money to communities like Morro Bay and Humboldt.

It’s not without significant risk, though. In mid-November, Shell, with partners China General Nuclear Power Group and France’s Caisse des dépôts et consignations (CDC) canceled a demonstration floating wind project offshore France. Shell’s statement cited ”technical, commercial and financial challenges” in the execution of the project as the main reasons for the decision to cancel the EUR 300 million, 28.5 MW Groix & Belle-Île pilot wind farm, Le Parisien reports.

“The economic conditions linked to the project have been significantly modified, calling into question, for all the partners of the consortium, the economic viability of the project,” Shell was quoted as saying in a statement.

State regulators 

Representatives of California’s State Lands Commission and the Coastal Commission attended the San Francisco conference, supporting the projects. Governor Gavin Newsom is committed to floating offshore wind and the regulatory agencies are on board.

All projects will be subjected to California's notoriously contentious permitting process, but the pressure is on to get turbines in the water by 2030. With the workforce development required – it will take as long as two years to train welders to the skill level needed – new port terminals to be constructed, and techniques for anchoring the turbines in such deep water refined, sussing out the risks of screwing it up is needed. 

Yurok Vice Chair Myers said, “The path to messing it up is just so wide.”

While the powers behind the idea and the money are moving forward, those communities that will be most affected are watching from the sidelines. 

“I’m afraid that it will be just such a bright, shiny object that it will distract us from the changes we need to make,” one conference participant said privately.

The question of whether this provides the solution California needs for its future power requirements, or if expenses and technical problems overwhelm it remains to be seen. We will keep you posted.

Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of
Christine Heinrichs, Moffat & Nichol, NREL, and Humboldt Bay Wind Port
Christine Heinrichs

Christine Heinrichs writes from her home on California’s Central Coast. She keeps a backyard flock of about a dozen hens. She follows coastal issues, writing a regular column on the Piedras Blancas elephant seal rookery for the San Luis Obispo Tribune. Her narrative on the Central Coast condor flock will appear in Ten Spurs 2021 edition.

Her book, How to Raise Chickens, was first published in 2007, just as the local food movement was starting to focus attention on the industrial food system. Backyard chickens became the mascot of local food. The third edition of How to Raise Chickens was published in January 2019. The Backyard Field Guide to Chickens was published in 2016. Look for them in Tractor Supply stores and online.

She has a B.S. in Journalism from the University of Oregon and belongs to several professional journalism and poultry organizations.

Debt limit deal gives Republicans a win on energy. Is there still room for a bipartisan agreement?

Democrats are giving up an energy bargaining chip in the debt limit deal, raising questions about whether they will be able to accomplish high-priority electricity reforms. For months, Democrats and Republicans have been working on a bipartisan package to speed up permitting for energy projects that could include provisions that both sides want. But, in...

Democrats are giving up an energy bargaining chip in the debt limit deal, raising questions about whether they will be able to accomplish high-priority electricity reforms.  For months, Democrats and Republicans have been working on a bipartisan package to speed up permitting for energy projects that could include provisions that both sides want.  But, in the debt deal that passed the House this week, Republicans get significant energy provisions they have been pushing for, such as limits on environmental reviews. Democrats, however, did not get their electric infrastructure buildout, a concession that could limit their leverage in future negotiations.   Some also argue that Democrats gave up too much and did not get enough on energy in the deal.  “I don’t feel that we got what I’d hoped we would get and I feel like we gave up a little more than I would’ve wanted to give up,” Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) told reporters on Tuesday evening.  Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle for months have been working on a deal to speed energy projects and other infrastructure projects. A major driver for Democrats in the negotiations is the potential to build out more power lines. They argue that this is key to getting more renewable energy on the grid to fight climate change.  Republicans, meanwhile, have been pushing for more procedural changes that they say will speed up energy projects across the board. Such changes include limiting timelines that environmental analyses for projects can take and limiting how long challengers have to sue over projects. Republicans have also released legislation that specifically bolsters oil, gas and mining.  Even after the debt deal, Republicans still see more to do and said this week that they want to play ball with Democrats to get a bipartisan deal done. Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) told reporters Wednesday that he sees the permitting issue going “one of two ways.” “One way might be to check the box, we did this, and then never think about it again. The other possibility would be that we create a little bit of momentum and say ‘OK, now let’s get serious and drill down a little bit,’” he said. “I hope it’s the latter.” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), the top Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, during a Republican leadership press conference described the debt limit deal as giving lawmakers a “jumping point to start off again in our bipartisan talks” on permitting. She separately told reporters that she specifically hoped to see reforms to the judicial review process. On the House side, a spokesperson for Natural Resources Committee Chairman Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) also said he hopes to get more done on the issue.  “We hope to come back to the negotiating table to get judicial review across the finish line as well, and the Dems may try to move transmission reforms as part of a bipartisan compromise,” spokesperson Rebekah Hoshiko said via email. “Of course we can't speak for everyone, but Chairman Westerman absolutely supports further reforms and will be looking to build a strong coalition of support," she wrote. However, some are skeptical that a bipartisan deal is achievable. “There’s a bipartisan interest in pretending that there’s a broader deal,” quipped Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.).  “These guys can barely get their act together” to prevent financial disaster, he said, “There’s no way that they are going to have a conversation, much less a bipartisan conversation, about how to inject competition into power markets.

Here’s how the debt ceiling bill would change the US energy permitting process

In a major win for the fossil fuel industry and pro-industry lawmakers like Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), the debt ceiling deal lawmakers are racing to pass and send to President Biden's desk for a signature overhauls the federal permitting process for major energy projects. The bill, which the House advanced on Wednesday night and the...

In a major win for the fossil fuel industry and pro-industry lawmakers like Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), the debt ceiling deal lawmakers are racing to pass and send to President Biden's desk for a signature overhauls the federal permitting process for major energy projects. The bill, which the House advanced on Wednesday night and the Senate is set to vote on ahead of a Monday default date for the U.S. government, would narrow the environmental reviews for new energy projects under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The change to the decades-old law would mean that agencies would be required to focus specifically on "reasonably foreseeable environmental effects" in their reviews of projects, rather than more abstract or downstream impacts. It would also cap the time for most reviews at a year, with two years for projects that may have larger environmental impacts. A change to long-standing precedent NEPA, passed in 1970, requires federal agencies to analyze the potential impacts of major actions that could affect the environment. Proponents point to the law’s importance in ensuring that major infrastructure projects don’t harm the environment or surrounding communities. Republicans and some centrist Democrats, however, have attacked its regulatory requirements as overly burdensome and frequently targeted it as part of larger broadsides against the regulatory state. The reforms included in the current bill would represent the biggest changes to the landmark law in roughly four decades. While a permitting overhaul is a Republican priority — Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has hailed the deal's changes — it’s also been a key focus of Manchin, a centrist Democrat who faces an uphill reelection bid next year. Tensions among Democrats Manchin, who backed Democrats' 2022 Inflation Reduction Act after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) assured him a permitting-reform bill would be brought to the Senate floor, has pushed hard for the changes included in the debt ceiling bill. In addition to permitting reform, the legislation would also fast-track another key Manchin priority — the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a 300-mile project that would transport gas between West Virginia and southern Virginia. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who has said legislation should not be used to approve or reject individual energy projects, has filed an amendment to remove that provision from the Senate version of the debt ceiling bill, but it remains unclear whether the Virginia Democrat will vote against the overall bill if the amendment fails. Meanwhile, at least one Senate Democrat has committed to voting against the deal over its permitting provisions. “I will not support a deal to fast-track dirty fossil fuel projects at the expense of environmental justice. I will not give polluters a Get Out of Jail Free card. I will vote NO on the default deal,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) tweeted Wednesday night.  What was left out of the bill While several Democrats have criticized certain energy-related provisions of the debt ceiling bill, the final deal negotiated between McCarthy and Biden does not contain a similar provision on expediting electrical transmission — a major wish-list item for Democrats. Instead, the bill requires a two-year study on building out transmission lines. White House Director of Management and Budget Shalanda Young, one of the primary Biden administration negotiators, has called the deal “a starting point.” “We are going to make sure that we can get clean energy expanded by working on transmission in the future,” she said. Criticism of permitting overhaul Environmental organizations have sharply criticized the bill’s permitting provisions, blasting it as a giveaway to the fossil fuel industry that weakens vital regulatory safeguards. “Biden has allowed Sen. Manchin and Republicans to hold the government hostage to ram through the climate-killing Mountain Valley Pipeline, dramatically roll back bedrock environmental laws that give voice to frontline communities and sabotage agencies whose job is to protect the environment and working families,” Jean Su, energy justice program director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement earlier this week.  Manchin and other permitting-reform advocates have argued streamlining the process is not inherently pro-fossil fuel, as it would expedite the process for renewable energy as well. However, opponents warn that weakening NEPA regulations would create more environmental problems than it solves. “The reforms we actually need are fully staffed permitting offices, transmission project reforms, and strong early engagement that prevents conflicts down the road — this bill’s slicing and dicing NEPA won’t do any of that,” Rep. Raul Grijalva (Ariz.), the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, said in a statement. Grijalva was one of 46 House Democrats to vote against the bill Wednesday night.

EHN reporter wins Golden Quill awards for reporting on petrochemicals and PFAS

PITTSBURGH — On Tuesday, EHN reporter Kristina Marusic was presented two awards from the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania for her reporting on toxic pollution caused by extractive industries in western Pennsylvania.The Golden Quills competition honors excellence in print, broadcast, photography, videography and digital journalism in western Pennsylvania and nearby counties in Ohio and West Virginia. This was the 59th year for the annual awards, which were presented at an awards dinner in Pittsburgh on May 30.Marusic's reporting on Shell's new plastics plant in western Pennsylvania and the oil and gas industry's use of PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), submitted together under the headline, "Energy Justice and Environmental Health in Western Pennsylvania,” won a first place prize in the science/environment non-daily written journalism category, and also received one of four Best in Show Ray Sprigle Memorial Awards.Marusic has previously won Golden Quill awards for her reporting on the health impacts of air pollution and fracking in western Pennsylvania, including another Ray Sprigle Memorial Award in 2020 for "Prescription for Prevention," a series on cancer and the environment that ultimately led Marusic to write her recently-released book, "A New War On Cancer.""It's an honor to have my work recognized through these awards," Marusic said. "I hope my reporting continues to make an impact in Western Pennsylvania."

PITTSBURGH — On Tuesday, EHN reporter Kristina Marusic was presented two awards from the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania for her reporting on toxic pollution caused by extractive industries in western Pennsylvania.The Golden Quills competition honors excellence in print, broadcast, photography, videography and digital journalism in western Pennsylvania and nearby counties in Ohio and West Virginia. This was the 59th year for the annual awards, which were presented at an awards dinner in Pittsburgh on May 30.Marusic's reporting on Shell's new plastics plant in western Pennsylvania and the oil and gas industry's use of PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), submitted together under the headline, "Energy Justice and Environmental Health in Western Pennsylvania,” won a first place prize in the science/environment non-daily written journalism category, and also received one of four Best in Show Ray Sprigle Memorial Awards.Marusic has previously won Golden Quill awards for her reporting on the health impacts of air pollution and fracking in western Pennsylvania, including another Ray Sprigle Memorial Award in 2020 for "Prescription for Prevention," a series on cancer and the environment that ultimately led Marusic to write her recently-released book, "A New War On Cancer.""It's an honor to have my work recognized through these awards," Marusic said. "I hope my reporting continues to make an impact in Western Pennsylvania."

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