REEDSPORT - Huge crowds didn’t turn out for the first of two public meetings about wave energy on Thursday at the Port of Umpqua.

Many local residents have heard about Ocean Power Technologies’ proposal for building a wave energy park in the ocean near Gardiner before and many of those have been actively involved in working with OPT. But this time, the meeting was recorded and comments made publicly will be transcribed, per Federal Energy Regulatory Commission mandates.

OPT officials made a presentation to about 20 people at the Port of Umpqua offices in the morning and to about 35 people at Pacific Auditorium in the evening. They described the plan to place 14 buoys in the water and generate some electricity, working the bugs out before applying for a federal license to increase the number of buoys to 200 (see sidebar).

OPT would use some of the existing infrastructure, primarily the effluent pipe, and the sub-station left over from International Paper’s property at Gardiner.

The Thursday sessions were markedly different from the day before. On Wednesday, OPT met with folks from state agencies and the commercial and sport fishing industries to work on specific problems.

Still, some of those issues carried over from Wednesday, identical messages but carried by different people.

“Since there will be no fishing there, perhaps OPT would be willing to throw in with supporting the (fishing) industry against marine reserves,” Coos County Commissioner John Griffith said.

The combination of wave energy parks and state-proposed marine reserves — both of which would make areas of the ocean off-limits to commercial and recreational fishermen — has hit a nerve in the fishing industry. Fishermen are hesitant to give up any fishing grounds. Many are downright angry.

The issue wasn’t lost on Sen. Joanne Verger, D-Coos Bay, either.

On Wednesday, as one of the co-conveners of the Oregon Solutions team, she brought up the subject before about 20 fishermen.

If the anchors for wave energy buoys will create an artificial reef, as some folks have discussed, what is the need for marine reserves? Verger asked.

To that end, she asked Gov. Ted Kulongoski to meet with fishermen on the South Coast to talk about marine reserves and wave power. He agreed, she said.

Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife representative Cristen Don said Thursday it should be made clear that marine reserves are not OPT’s problem.

True, said Oregon International Port off Coos Bay Deputy Director Mike Gaul.

“But you really have to look to the economies of the commercial fishing fleet. ... This meeting is about one park, but coastal communities are looking at the overall.”

So far, four companies and two counties have applied for or been granted federal permits to study sites for wave or tidal power generation on the Oregon Coast or Columbia River.

The number of proposed wave energy parks, plus other effects, real or proposed, must be taken into account, speakers said, even if the process could affect one project.

It goes to the cumulative effects of losing natural resources, Griffith added.

Other speakers reiterated the necessity for moving the Reedsport OPT Wave Park out of prime crabbing areas - the same suggestion repeated at Wednesday’s meeting.

“It needs to be hard up against the western edge (of OPT’s study site),” Winchester Bay commercial fisherman Barry Nelson said.