Jobs vs. delay rules  at wind farm hearing

Most comments don’t address impact report; Ocean City, Upper Twp. weigh in

OCEAN CITY — A public hearing held by the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) on the proposed Ocean Wind 1 turbine project off the coast drew more than two hours of public comment Thursday afternoon, but very little addressed details in the actual topic at hand — the 1,400-page draft report on the potential effects of the wind farm.

Instead, the hearing was dominated by union members and officials who support the wind farm because of the jobs they believe it will create, after multiple speakers from Clean Ocean Action repeatedly asked for the comment 45-day period to be extended, saying the window was far too short for people to digest the voluminous impact statement to be able to offer informed opinions.

Other commenters from Ocean City and Upper Township weighed in, including Upper Township Committeewoman Kim Hayes, who said the township supports the project but is asking for a minor change to move a substation 500 feet.

BOEM is having a series of three virtual public hearings on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, or DEIS. The first was last week. The second is at 5 p.m. today (July 20) and the third is at 5 p.m. Tuesday, July 26. (To tune in, learn more and offer comments, go to BOEM.gov for details.)

Zachary Klein, policy attorney for Clean Ocean Action, said he joined colleagues Cindy Zipf, Kari Martin and Dr. Swarna Muthukrishnan, all of whom spoke, in calling for an extension of the public comment period and to urge BOEM to do a pilot-scale offshore wind project off the coast of New Jersey “before rushing into industrialization of the ocean at the massive scale that Ocean Wind 1 will require.”

Klein said there is no legal requirement to move ahead with the project because the goal of 30 gigawatts of electricity generated for wind power “is just that, a goal handed down by the president.”

Ocean Wind 1 is proposing as many as 98 massive turbines in a plot 15 miles off the coast of Cape May and Atlantic counties that is expected to produce 1,100 megawatts of electricity, or enough to power 500,000 homes and businesses in New Jersey. 

It is a project of PSEG and Ørsted, a Danish wind-power company, which also are proposing an adjacent wind farm, Ocean Wind 2. (The project’s website is oceanwindone.com.) There are multiple other wind farms proposed off the coast from Atlantic County north to off New York and Long Island.

“We shouldn’t be foregoing scientific integrity for the purpose of meeting unrealistic ambitions,” Klein said. 

He and his colleagues from Clean Ocean Action took up the first 20-some minutes of the hearing.

Supporting project for job creation

Sunni Vargas, offshore wind campaign organizer for the New Jersey League of Conservation Voters, said her group was part of a coalition called New Jersey Wind Works that support renewable clean energy because of the dangers posed to the coast and marine life by climate change and because of the economic benefits — good-paying union jobs.

There were numerous speakers from various trade unions — carpenters, pile-drivers and millwrights — who also spoke in favor of wind farms because of the jobs they would create.

One of them, Bill Snyder, said he is a Cape May County resident and “a proud union pile-driver out of local 474 … and a proud union carpenter representing Atlantic States Carpenters.

“We represent over 40,000 union members,” Snyder said, “skilled union members who are ready for this project. We are very happy we have the opportunity to support Ørsted and now is the time for generations like us to take the reins and invest in clean infrastructure for future generations so that we not only create great family-sustaining jobs but we also help mitigate future disasters like Superstorm Sandy.”

Snyder said not only would they be creating green energy but would be steering away from foreign fuels “and once again making America great with our infrastructure.”

Lifelong Upper Township resident Jeffrey Battersby said he is “100 percent in favor of the offshore wind project.” He is an instructor at the Thomas C. Over Carpenters Training Center in Hammonton.

“We have the capability and we are training our apprentices to work on the facilities in a safe manner,” he said.

Another life-long Upper Township resident, Steven Finnelli, said he is a 16-year member of Pile-drivers Local 454 and an instructor at the same training center as Battersby.

“I’d like to voice my full support for off-shore wind development. As an Upper Township resident, I’m looking forward to off-shore wind energy coming ashore to the substation in Beesleys Point,” Finnelli said. “New Jersey does not need to choose between good-paying union jobs and a clean environment.” 

He added the project will provide for those jobs for the local workforce and “clean, reliable renewable source of energy.”

“Many local residents will benefit from this off-shore wind project,” Finnelli said.

U.T. official: Township seeks small change, not project delay

“On behalf of Upper Township and the host community for the Ocean Wind 1 planned substation at the former B.L. England site (in Beesleys Point),” Hayes thanked BOEM for hosting the hearing before asking for a minor change for the substation’s location. She said the township is “excited” to be part of the project.

Ocean Wind 1 proposes linking its wind farm with the New Jersey power grid in two places — one at the former Oyster Creek nuclear plant in Ocean County and the other in Beesleys Point, with the transmission lines running through Ocean City’s beach and streets and along Roosevelt Boulevard to Upper Township.

Talking about how the B.L. England plant was retired in 2019, presenting “fiscal challenges” for the township, Hayes said the site has been designated for redevelopment and would include a substation because of the plans for Ocean Wind and to allow development adjacent to it.

She said the township has maintained “a positive and open dialogue” with Ocean Wind 1 representatives and is now working with the project officials and the new owner of the B.L. England site to move the substation about 500 feet north of its planned location to allow for better development of the parcel of land. The B.L. England site encompasses more than 300 acres in Beesleys Point.

“We believe this move is in the best interest of Upper Township and our residents,” she added.

“Upper Township is excited to be part of this project to deliver economic development and sustainable clean energy to our state,” Hayes said. “A delay in the project is not in our interest.” 

She asked BOEM to support the “minor relocation” of the substation. She said it wouldn’t cause a delay in the project schedule and that there may be even less environmental impact on the township because of the relocation, including on wetlands.

Ocean City residents oppose the project

Ocean City property owner Joan Marie Ebert voiced her strong opposition to the project. As a summer beach home owner, she talked about the perceived negative effect of the project on vacation homes.

“No one knows about Ocean Wind,” she asserted after noting that two-thirds of property owners are absentee in the resort. 

Ebert said she and her husband found out about the project, which has been in the works for a few years, only when he was searching for electric vehicle charging stations.

“It is alarming to me that a project of this scale and scope and size and impact on coastal communities is being pushed through so aggressively,” she said. 

Ebert added that having as many as 98 turbines more than 900 feet tall with have a “dominant impact” on the view. She said no wind farms should be planned so close because they would have a “devastating impact” on the tourism economy of coastal communities.

Ocean City resident Suzanne Hornick, who represents the group Protect Our Coast NJ (protectourcoastnj.com), said the comment period on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement was too short, especially for people like her.

“I’m just a mom from Ocean City, New Jersey. This is where I live,” Hornick said. “I do not have a staff of people to help me. It’s going to take me a lot longer than 45 days to read, understand and research 1,400 pages of problems.”

“All the negatives I’ve read in this document far outweigh the potential benefits, which, by the way, are strictly empirical,” she said. “Nothing of this size has ever been built before … and now New Jersey will be the world’s guinea pig with Ocean City at ground zero.”

Some of the “horrible things” she has encountered so far reading the plan, she said, were the killing of bald eagles, endangered red knots and North Atlantic right whales, hundreds of deep-sea pile driving and blasting for years.” 

She said it couldn’t be done without billions of dollars in subsidies to foreign countries that bear no financial responsibilities “if a disaster occurs.”

Hornick said the project would devastate the environment, cold pool, coastal communities, tourism, fishing and hospitality industries, which will in turn “destroy our towns and the quality of life.”

She said the wind turbines being proposed are already “antiquated technology,” that there are better options for carbon-reducing solutions and the rising utility costs will hurt the poorest residents hardest.

Hornick also noted the problems of dumping wastewater into the ocean and EMF (electromagnetic field) exposure and its effect on sea life and humans. She criticized the fact that Ocean City lost home rule when the New Jersey Legislature quickly approved a new law last summer to allow the state Board of Public Utilities to rule on rights of way related to transmission lines of projects such as wind farms, decisions that before were up to individual communities. 

Legislators have acknowledged the law was passed to prevent Ocean City or other communities from holding up the project by blocking transmission lines from using rights of way. (Ocean Wind 1 proposes those lines to come to shore beneath the 35th Street beach in Ocean City before running under streets through the island. In a hearing before the BPU in June, Ocean City’s solicitor argued Ocean Wind 1 could run its cables through Great Egg Harbor Bay rather than over the island.)

Fellow Ocean City resident Robin Shaffer said from his travels abroad as a foreign service officer he understands the need to reduce carbon emissions in the world is great, “but the need is not great here. The need is great in places like India, China and Tajikistan — places that a lot of Americans haven’t heard of.”

“We need to do a better job as a human species of doing less polluting,” he said. “I think America needs to examine its energy infrastructure, but we need to realize we have some of the toughest environmental regulations on the planet.”

He used the example of Germany, which he said went “wholesale” into renewable energy and now is dependent on Russia for fossil fuels, compared to France, which decided decades ago to go into nuclear power.

Shaffer said he isn’t opposed to solar panels “or the occasional windmill, but I’m not in favor of this project.” He said he worries about its impact on waterfowl and sea life including dolphins and whales and the fishery.

“This is the industrialization of an enormous area of our ocean,” he said, “and to just put it out there and hope for the best is not good enough.”

Shaffer said the tipping point is when all the absentee owners in shore communities come together and hire attorneys to make sure the state of New Jersey and federal government are doing their due diligence on the project to protect the environment.

Mary Finnelli said she has been a beachfront resident of Cape May County for more than 35 years seasonally. She expressed “two major concerns.” One is that the turbines would be only 15 miles off the coast and visible from Brigantine to Stone Harbor, even to Anglesea. She suggested the turbines be at least 40 miles off the coast.

Finnelli said the beauty of the ocean “will be forever compromised if the turbines are seen in mass quantity off our beach coast.”

She also asked they lengthen the due diligence time at least to 90 days in part because it is the summer when residents are away. 

“I’d like to say we’ve given the public the opportunity to take the time to digest the document,” she said. “It is a lengthy document.

Captain: New reef system along coast will create ‘fish factory”

Northern New Jersey charter boat owner Paul Eidman said he has been an advocate for offshore wind power for a decade. 

“I have been looking forward to projects like Ocean Wind 1,” he said, adding that climate change is warming the waters, forcing game fish into deeper and colder waters, and the water is becoming more acidic. 

“Fortunately there is something we can do to slow down the danger of sea water warming and acidification,” Eidman said. “The prospect of clean energy has arrived” in the form of wind projects in the ocean.

He said the football field-sized radius at the base of the wind turbine towers would become home to sea life.

“Game fish and predators will flock to this newly formed reef system, so what is currently barren sea floor will be converted into a massive artificial reef system that will run down the East Coast,” Eidman said. “We will witness a fish factory growing right in front of our eyes, creating a vital habitat that is both home and nursery for fish production.” 

Continuing to burn fossil fuels, he said, will be detrimental because “climate change is an undeniable threat.”

Comments not what BOEM was seeking

According to BOEM, the point of the public hearings was to get input about the accuracy of information and adequacy of methodology used in the impact statement, new information that could change conclusions, where clarification was needed and other sources of “credible research”

Given the nature of many of the comments in the first public hearing, most did not address what BOEM was seeking. 

The 45-day comment period of the impact statement closes Aug. 8.

BOEM said more information can be found online at: boem.gov/renewable-energy/state-activities/ocean-wind-1.

To submit comments, go online to regulations.gov and search for Docket No. BOEM-2022-0021 and click on the “Comment” button.

Written comments can be sent to: Project Manager, Office of Renewable Energy Programs, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, 45600 Woodland Road, VAM0OREP, Sterling, VA 20166.

By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff