ASTORIA — “We thought we had a plan.”

Lincoln County Commissioner Terry Thompson talked Monday about the sunken Finavera Renewables test buoy off the coast near Newport, the company’s plans to salvage it and other issues during a Wave Energy Working Group meeting.

Thompson and other fishermen in Newport have been working with Finavera, discussing buoy placements in the ocean that would have the least impact on fishermen. Finavera still is unsure about the status of the prototype buoy resting on the ocean floor and weather calm enough to remove it hasn’t materialized.

But there was another issue that gave several members of the Ocean Policy Advisory Council’s subcommittee pause. It was the announcement of a nearly 30-square-mile wave-and-wind energy project proposed off of Grays Harbor in Washington.

That’s huge, when compared to the 1⁄4-square-mile wave energy project currently proposed off of Gardiner by Ocean Power Technologies.

The 30 or so people in the audience were quiet as working group member Scott McMullen read the specifics of Washington Wave Company’s project.

It would have up to 90 wind turbines and 350 wave converters to produce 400 megawatts/hour at peak and 168 on average. It could cover the entire coastal zone, out to 3 miles, on both sides of the Grays Harbor entrance, for 10 linear miles.

“This makes it one of the largest proposed wind and wave projects in the world,” the company’s Web site says.

Washington Wave Company has a different kind of idea for its hardware. The wave energy converters would be fully submersed, marked only by a small buoy on the surface of the water. The anchors for the wind turbines and wave energy converters are designed as structures that would foster fish habitat. Moreover, fishing vessels could navigate through the area, according to the Web site.

This plan, however, has something most other proposals haven’t suggested. It’s a feature that could be appealing to communities on long, sandy peninsulas or stretches of beach:

Protection.

The array of wave converters and wind turbines could cut down on the power of damaging waves generated by big storms and help control coastal erosion.

Proposals such as Washington Wave Company’s recent application are the kind for which fishermen have no plans. Applications for more projects are continuing to be filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Most companies file for applications before they talk with existing ocean users, fishermen at the meeting said.

The added complication of potential marine reserves — closed areas in the ocean, also being considered by the council — could have disastrous effects.

“These wave energy things ... it’s going to take some time to get there,” Coos Bay Trawlers’ Association Executive Director Steve Bodnar said. “But the double-whammy is not good for the crabbing industry. It’s not good for the salmon industry.”

For any of the projects — the 1⁄4-square-mile Reedsport project, 28-square-mile Grays Harbor project or the whopping 68-square-mile project in Northern California — it boils down to the basic politics of competing interests of ocean users and renewable energy. The common thread binding the two interests is state and federal agencies who provide input and oversee the projects.

And FERC, working group members said, holds most of the cards.

It’s an issue of concern to other federal agencies.

FERC recently issued the first license for a buoy park project to Finavera, for a project off the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. The license is for five years and is conditioned that Finavera continue some studies. It takes advantage of a recently approved FERC policy that speeds up the approval for some wave energy projects.

“Basically, what the policy says is FERC can actually condition these licenses prior to the completion of all their consultations,” National Marine Fisheries Service representative Cathy Tortorici said, such as talking with NMFS about Endangered Species Act impacts.

“Our agency is really concerned about this — there’s not enough time (for consultation),” she said. “What this says to me is that these projects are not going away. They’re actually going forward.”

It’s not just federal agencies concerned about the process of slowing things down so that adequate studies can be done.

“FERC steps out of the way and resource agencies are impeding the process,” Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Developement representative Greg McMurray said. “That’s the perception of the public. It’s politics. We have a problem with the (FERC) policy.”

In other business, the working group:

• discussed the status of a cumulative-effects study to inform the public, resource managers and decision makers about the possible cumulative ecological and socio-economic effects of wave energy development; and

• discussed ongoing negotiations between fishermen and Ocean Power Technologies about the possibility of moving wave energy buoys to deeper water.

The full Ocean Policy Advisory Council continues its meeting today in Astoria.