KANEOHE BAY MARINE CORPS BASE, Hawaii — The road to the lookout is rarely used. Grass grows in cracks in the pavement.

Just to get there requires crossing a golf course, enduring odd stares from golfers.

But behind the golf course, over the hill and beyond a U.S. Marine Corps bunker, is a bit of technology that some say could be one step in changing the country’s dependence on petroleum products.

It bobs in the ocean about a mile offshore, a yellow buoy barely visible with the naked eye.

“There it is,” said Bill Powers, vice president of manufacturing operations with Ocean Power Technologies, as he hauls out a telescope and tripod.

The Hawaiian process

The PowerBuoy 40, at 55 feet long and less than 12 feet in diameter, is about half the size of the ones OPT hopes to place in the ocean off of Reedsport and Coos Bay. It’s the latest of three prototypes to be tethered to the bottom of the sea off the island of Oahu in about 100 feet of water. Soon, it will be hooked up to the power grid at the Marine Corps base.

One of the advantages of using energy-generating buoys like this one is they work well in remote locations, areas where continually refueling generators to power shoreside systems is inconvenient or in deep-water installations used for monitoring. The PB40 also will provide the company with valuable information prior to placing buoys in Oregon waters.

OPT endured several public meetings and rigorous environmental review before putting the buoy in Hawaiian waters. It’s much the same process the company is going through on the Oregon Coast with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

OPT started the process in Hawaii in the early 2000s, and came out with a finding of no significant impact from the Navy in 2003.

That’s not to say there was no controversy, Powers said.

The undersea area through which the cable connecting the buoy to shore would run is part of the Mokapu Burial Area. Native Hawaiians were concerned.

“They didn’t want us to trench it,” Powers said.

Fiber optic cables that land in Oregon are trenched and that type of system also is planned for the Oregon wave parks.

But after several discussions, OPT worked with the Hawaiians for a compromise. The undersea cable is elevated above the seafloor by a pedestal support system.

A sight to see

Aesthetics matter to OPT, and so does getting along with local stakeholders, Powers said.

At several Oregon meetings, participants voiced concerns that the yellow buoys would be visible from shore. What’s above the water a few thousand feet off of Oahu is comparable to what would be visible a few miles offshore of Oregon.

At night, navigation lights might be more readily visible, the Navy’s environmental assessment said.

Powers, though, had another idea — camouflage — while looking at the buoy from the bunker in Hawaii.

That might appease Oregonians worried about the visibility of 200 bright yellow buoys off Coos Bay’s North Spit. Painting some of the interior buoys a bluish or gray color to match the color of the ocean might mask the seemingly hugeness of the four arrays of 50 buoys each that would stretch for roughly five miles parallel to the beach.

“A little less intrusive color, I think it would be alright,” Powers said, noting that corner buoys identifying the borders of the array likely would still need to be painted brightly, for visibility.

“Of course, the (U.S.) Coast Guard would have to approve it,” he added.

In Hawaii, the PB40 is anchored by three heavy steel I-beams bolted into the seafloor. The ocean bottom at Kaneohe is limestone, Powers said, with just a thin veneer of sand on top.

OPT lists the anchoring system as an advantage in its environmental assessment and finding of no significant impact.

“Growth of benthic organisms, such as corals and sponges, on the new substrate provided by the undersea cable, buoy anchor base, concrete moorings may end up benefiting the ecosystem,” the Navy concluded in the findings.

That’s already apparent, said Don Rochon, public affairs director for the Naval Facilities Engineering Command Pacific.

Ongoing approval requires OPT to continue monitoring the buoy and moorage. Scientists and divers have documented an increase in habitat growth of organisms and the attraction of more fish.

In Oregon, though, the anchoring systems are designed as 165 tons of concrete, three for each buoy.

Oregon Trawl Commission Administrator Brad Pettinger pointed out at one of the early meetings in Reedsport the introduction of such a structure could be a problem.

Sure, he said, it could be good for fishermen if the fish attracted to the anchors scatter outside the buoy array and are available to trawlers, longliners and sport fishermen.

But it could doom good crabbing habitat, he said.

Crabbers depend on the availability of flat sandy ocean floors for an abundance of Dungeness crab. Creating vertical structures could attract fish but also predators such as octopus that feed on crab.

Still, it’s something OPT and fishermen, among other stakeholders, will have to work out as talks continue.

Working locally

Powers said now that most of the work is done in Hawaii, he likely will be visiting Oregon in January. As OPT moves ahead on a 10-buoy energy farm off Gardiner and a 200-buoy farm off the North Spit, he will be looking for local workers.

Some of the manufacturing of the bigger, 120-foot-long buoys will be done at Oregon Iron Works in Portland, but some work may be done locally, OPT staff have said. Surveys of the areas will need to be done, too, Powers said.

In Hawaii, the Navy and Marine Corps personnel did the electrical work. Monitoring the buoy is done from a bunker on the base and from OPT’s corporate headquarters in Pennington, N.J., Similar monitoring stations would have to be built in Oregon.

OPT’s willingness to use local talent was welcome news to Nick Furman, executive director of the Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission.

If OPT uses the same example set by other companies when it comes to hiring local workers, the wave energy company will be much more welcome in the community, he said.

“Use the Titan example,” Furman said, referring to Titan Salvage, the company that removed the New Carissa during the summer. Titan found most of the engineering, fabrication and other work it needed done at local businesses.

“That would be best,” he said.