Ocean City Council on Ørsted’s wind farm: Not In My Back Yard

Would turbines on the horizon hurt the tourism industry?

We doubt Ørsted’s public representative expected what was coming her way on Thursday night at the Ocean City Council meeting.

Kris Ohleth finished a cheery generic presentation of the Denmark-based company’s proposed $1.6 billion offshore wind farm. She was speaking before council because the company is considering the island as a path for power transmission cables between the defunct B.L. England generating plant in Beesleys Point and the 99 massive wind turbines proposed for about 15 miles off the coast.

She appeared before council seeking permission to put the cables in the right of way of city streets. Utilities are allowed to use the right-of-ways, but Ørsted isn’t a utility.

First Ward Councilman Michael DeVlieger began with a series of questions then launched into a lengthy commentary that received the support of the other six members of City Council. The gist was simple: We don’t want your project in our back yard.

There were at least two ironies in the presentation. One was DeVlieger saying he was in favor of green energy. The other was Ohleth’s comment before that: “We appreciate the warm welcome we have been getting and the super-progressive attitudes in bringing clean energy to New Jersey.”

There wasn’t anything warm or vaguely progressive coming back from Ocean City Council Thursday night.

The question isn’t about whether DeVlieger or the other council members give a hoot about green energy. It is about whether they want to risk Ocean City’s tourism and valuable real estate with the prospect of spending 25 years with 99 853-foot tall wind turbines 15 miles away but still visible along the horizon.

People are often progressive until their progressiveness conflicts with their real lives and, as the case may be, livelihoods. Added to that, “progressive” is not really a term thrown about when discussing Ocean City, which thrives on its image as a throw-back resort from the old days.

DeVlieger’s fear, echoed by the other council members, is that having all those turbines dotting the far-off horizon could devalue Ocean City’s pricey property and drive off homeowners and tourists who love the windmill-free view as it is. The councilman threw in a few shots at “north Jersey” voters and “north Jersey” politicians wanting the green energy but putting the project in south Jersey because they don’t want to look at it. (Ohleth said the massive offshore site, which is due east of the land from Atlantic City to Stone Harbor, was chosen because it not only has the “ubiquitous” offshore New Jersey winds and is at the right ocean floor level for construction, but also because it has the least amount of activity, such as commercial fishing.)

It is an unknown – or risk, as DeVlieger put it – how turbines on the horizon would affect tourism. If it did have a detrimental effect, that would matter for all the barrier islands along the southern New Jersey coast.

We don’t know if the wind farm would have a negative, neutral or positive impact on tourism, that the sight of what look like tiny turbines 15 miles away would matter to people who come to the shore for vacations or to buy pricey beach-front homes.

We also don’t know if Ocean City Council, which hasn’t taken up the proposed ordinance, would have any substantial impact on the future of the project, which is a good two years away from final approval and has a long way to go in the permitting process. 

Ørsted doesn’t seem to require the resort, but wants it as an option at this point.

Before council members spoke up, we thought the biggest concerns about the wind farm would be the impact on commercial fishing, worries about EMF (electromagnetic fields) and bird populations. Council has now added tourism to the mix.

We’re curious to see how Ørsted and other elected bodies on the islands and down the coast will respond.