CAPE MAY COURT HOUSE — Cape May County filed suit Oct. 17 in the Federal District Court for the District of New Jersey against multiple federal agencies and the leadership of those agencies, alleging regulators abandoned their obligations to protect the environment and East Coast marine life in favor of wind energy.
The county was joined by the Cape May County Chamber of Commerce, the Greater Wildwood Hotel Motel Association, Clean Ocean Action, the Garden State Seafood Association, LaMonica Fine Foods, Lund’s Fisheries and Surfside Seafood Products.
According to a news release from the county, the suit is being handled by the Marzulla Law Firm in Washington, D.C., with assistance from county counsel Jeff Lindsay, county special counsel for offshore wind Michael Donohue and Greg Werkheiser of Cultural Heritage Partners based in Richmond, Va.
“As we’ve said many times, we spent the better part of two years trying to negotiate with Ørsted to redesign this project in a way that would cause less damage to the environment and less damage to our tourism and fisheries interests,” Cape May County Board of Commissioners Director Len Desiderio said. “Our reasonable proposals fell on deaf ears as state and federal regulators rubber-stamped permits to rush the Ocean Wind One project to approval.
“We believe the federal permitting process was fatally flawed and we have assembled a great legal team to pursue these issues in the federal courts. There is far too much at stake to do nothing. This suit brings together important stakeholders in Cape May County willing to fight to protect our economy, our environment and our future.”
The suit alleges that federal regulatory agencies ignored the requirements of the Administrative Procedures Act, the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the National Historic Preservation Act and a host of other federal laws and regulations in approving permits for Ocean Wind 1.
“Two things have been conclusively established so far,” Donohue said. “First, these are nonpartisan issues, with leading voices on both sides of the aisle in New Jersey and throughout the country now voicing the same concerns about the negative impacts of offshore wind projects that Cape May County has been raising for the past two years.
“Second, constructing this project and all of the other proposed offshore wind projects, according to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, will have no positive impact on climate change or reducing global warming.”
Ocean Wind 1 involves 98 wind turbines 15 miles off the coast of Atlantic and Cape May counties meant to produce 1,100 megawatts of power for New Jersey homes and businesses. It would be the first of multiple offshore electricity-generating wind turbine project not only off the coast of southern New Jersey, but along the coast from the northern coastal tip of North Carolina to just south of Massachusetts.
Locally there has been opposition to the Legislature and governor giving the state Board of Public Utilities control over allowing transmission cables from the wind farm to run through Ocean City, a right-of-way approval process that used to be under the control of municipalities.
Those lines would run through the center of Ocean City and out Roosevelt Boulevard to connect to a substation in Beesleys Point in Upper Township at the site of the former B.L. England Generating Station, a plant that was decommissioned after decades of producing electricity through burning coal.
Other local officials and citizens fear the view of wind turbines off the coast will disrupt the tourism economy at the Jersey shore and harm property values.
The New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club criticized the lawsuit as a delaying tactic.
“We are saddened, but not surprised, that we continue to see baseless lawsuits used as a tactic to delay New Jersey’s transition to clean renewable energy. These organizations and business interests have one goal: protecting their profits,” the Sierra Club stated in a news release.
“Personal greed is being placed over the health and well-being of us all. Unfortunately, we see more moves to protect precious million-dollar views than caring for what happens to black and brown people suffering from pollution in New Jersey and across the country,” said Anjuli Ramos-Busot, New Jersey Director for the Sierra Club. “Offshore wind will create good jobs, improve air quality, increase our resilience and reliability. It’s time we stop burying our heads in the sand and face the facts. Clean energy is the future and the transition is happening. Big Oil is the only one to benefit if we maintain the status quo while New Jersey residents and businesses continue to suffer.”
According to the county’s news release, a consensus is building that the projects are moving too fast, without proper regulatory analysis and with too many unknowns and tremendous potential for environmental and economic harm.
“The Cape May County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously not to allow the county and its environment, tourism industry and fisheries industry be the subject of a massive, reckless experiment that will permanently change our way of life, without an unprecedented and aggressive challenge in the federal courts,” the county release states.
Ørsted recently reported that it will suffer an impairment on the Ocean Wind One project of more than $2 billion, that it will delay certain aspects of the project and that it is entertaining walking away from the project if it cannot maintain profitability, according to the county’s release.
The suit, brought as a challenge under the Federal Administrative Procedures Act, is anticipated to be decided before the end of 2024.
By CRAIG D. SCHENCK/Sentinel staff