OCEAN CITY – Cape May County is hoping to take the fight over a land easement in Ocean City granted to Ørsted for its offshore wind farm as far as the state Supreme Court.
Last week, special counsel to the county, Michael J. Donohue, announced the county is appealing Superior Court Assignment Judge Michael Blee’s decision requiring the county clerk to record the easement Ørsted was granted for part of its land-based work on transmission lines to connect the wind farm to the power grid in Beesleys Point, Upper Township.
The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management granted the Danish company its record of decision approving the plan to put up to 98 massive wind turbines 15 miles off the coast of Cape May and Atlantic counties. The transmission lines would run through Ocean City.
Donohue has argued granting the easement was unconstitutional and without due process after the state Legislature approved a law taking the power of rights-of-way from communities and granting it to the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities. Ocean City and the county opposed granting the easement.
Donohue said the court ruled in favor of Ørsted in a similar case against Ocean City.
“This is a brand new law that has never been tested in court,” Donohue said in a release announcing the appeal. “The county has appealed the BPU ruling that took county real property rights and gave them to Ørsted. In Ørsted’s new lawsuit, we argued, under court rule, that the BPU, rate counsel and the eleven Cape May County municipalities that participated in the BPU proceedings should have been allowed to participate in Ørsted’s lawsuit seeking to force the filing of the easement. The judge disagreed.”
He said higher courts need to decide this issue about whether municipalities or the BPU have the ability to decide property rights.
“It is often the case with brand new laws that the parameters and final interpretation are left to the Appellate Division or even the State Supreme Court,” Donohue wrote. “Given the paramount importance of the meaning of this new law, we intend to make sure our Appellate Courts have a chance to weigh in on important issues of constitutionality, due process and a clear conflict of interest on the part of the BPU.”
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff