Council, mayor meet in executive session
OCEAN CITY – Ocean City Council and Mayor Jay Gillian met in executive session during last week’s meeting to discuss plans to run power transmission lines across the resort as part of the the Ocean Wind 1 project.
There was no discussion among council members at the meeting, but it was a lively topic in public comment, with statements for and against the plan.
On Friday, Gillian released a statement that was not especially enlightening, given that executive sessions are out of public purview.
“While I cannot share details about the closed meeting, I want to assure everybody that we are considering all of our options,” Gillian wrote in his weekly letter from the mayor posted on Ocean City’s website. “Ocean Wind is seeking this permission even though an extensive review period for the overall offshore wind project is just getting under way. That timeline does not work for Ocean City. As always, we will gather facts first, before making any decision on how to move forward.”
Gillian was referencing the fact Ocean Wind 1, a joint venture between Danish wind power company Ørsted and PSEG, was bypassing the city by asking the state Board of Public Utilities for permission to run its cables across the resort using the rights of way.
Ocean Wind 1 proposes up to 99 853-foot-tall towers topped with wind turbines in a parcel 15 miles off the coast of Cape May and Atlantic counties that would generate 1,100 megawatts of power. Ocean Wind 1 wants to run its transmission lines across the island, coming ashore under the sand at 35th Street and then headed across the island to attach to the power grid at the former B.L. England power generating plant in Beesleys Point, Upper Township. Ocean Wind 2 is already proposed to double the generating power and there are proposals for other wind farms by other companies north of the parcel.
Although there have been repeated requests from the venture over the past two years, Ocean City has refused to put an ordinance forward allowing Ocean Wind 1 to use the city’s rights of way.
Two weeks ago, Ocean Wind 1 applied to the state Board of Public Utilities (BPU) for that permission under a law enacted by the state Legislature last summer that removed the ability of municipalities to hold up projects such as wind turbine farms by denying access to their rights of way. The venture also scheduled a public comment session for March 7 on a Green Acres land diversion for the less than an acre of land, in various parcels including the 35th Street beach and along Roosevelt Boulevard near the bridge, for the cables.
Lively comments
Resident John Feairheller referenced the rights of way during public comment when he talked about the impact of power cables and how the project should address them.
He noted because the venture plans to remove the cable at the end of the wind farm’s 25-year life expectancy, it doesn’t need a right of way, just a license to operate.
He said the venture isn’t really talking about the fact the cables carrying the electricity between the wind turbine farm and power grid are going to give off heat, a factor that probably keeps flounder from crossing them in the ocean, fearing that they are predators.
He said the heat of the cables is unchecked, it can cause moisture to turn to steam beneath the streets, cook the roots of trees and cause safety problems. He said the same is true for the dunes where there is vegetation. Although the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wants cables 30 feet below the sand because of beach replenishment work, he believes they should be 40 feet down, also to protect beach-goers.
Beth Mallozzi said she and her husband, who have been residents of Ocean City for the past eight and a half years and that Ocean City “is the best place we’ve ever lived.” However, she took issue with Ocean City Council’s apparent refusal to grant the use of rights of way to the Ocean Wind 1 project.
Mallozzi said offshore wind is going to be a “significant piece of the puzzle in response to climate change” and that wind energy has a lot of support, including locally, “even though the voices are louder” against the project.
She said wind energy is a decades-long initiative that continues to be fine-tuned and she was grateful to the international community for embracing it because it brings experience to the work planned for off the coast of New Jersey.
Mallozzi said Ocean City Council’s “stubborn posture” to not work with Ørsted is not wise because it would remove the resort’s insider influence and the city could lose economic benefits.
Resident Donna Moore supported Mallozzi’s position, saying the city needs to keep channels open for communication and advocacy for the best results for the community both in engineering designs of the project and funding for the city.
Resident Suzanne Hornick, who has been especially outspoken in opposition to the wind turbine farm, said environmental studies of wind farm projects in Europe are not compatible with what is being proposed off the coast, that studies have not been conducted here, and that the warmth from the cables is because they’re emitting radiation.
Reiterating comments she has made in the past, she said wind turbines are inefficient, leak oil including SF6, which is deadly, will make noise, their lights will be visible and will “destroy our quality of life.”
Hornick said they rely on fossil fuels to manufacture, transport, install and decommission and will add a minimum of $1.50 per month to each homeowner’s utility bill per lease area, claiming it could cost her household budget $30 to $45 per month and more for commercial customers.
“None of this makes a bit of sense,” she said.
“I applaud City Council for absolutely listening to and learning about the facts of this issue and not just relying on it because it’s not going to solve climate change. It’s just going to make it worse,” she said.
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff