OCEAN CITY — Opponents of Danish wind-power company Ørsted using Green Acres land on the island to install power cables took issue with how the state Board of Public Utilities characterized the city’s stance on the project.
Former councilman Michael DeVlieger and others, including Suzanne Hornick of saveourcoastlinenj.com, said they believed the president of the BPU intentionally downplayed Ocean City’s opposition at a recent public hearing.
They spoke during public comment at the Ocean City Council meeting May 26, expressing concerns that the administration and council were not doing enough formally to fight the request, which would allow the company to develop Ocean Wind 1, a wind-turbine project off the coast.
A recent BPU hearing was on Ocean Wind, which plans to build as many as 99 massive electricity-generating wind turbines 15 miles off the coast of Cape May and Atlantic counties, and wants to use rights of way through Ocean City for its power cables. The BPU hearing was on whether to allow easements, diversions and environmental permits on state Green Acres land.
DeVlieger, who has been an outspoken opponent of the project since his time on City Council, asserted that during the BPU hearing Ørsted officials and BPU Commissioner Joseph L. Fiordaliso said Ocean City had declined to comment at the hearing. He said he found out about the hearing only the night before and that it was not advertised locally, only in an out-of-town newspaper.
“I sat there numb,” DeVlieger said, and upset that no one from the administration or City Council was attending the hearing.
He said others, including Hornick, expressed their opposition during the hearing.
With the date to offer comments closing June 7, he asked council to adopt a resolution that night showing its opposition and forwarding it to a range of officials from the Cape May County Board of Commissioners to Gov. Phil Murphy and the BPU.
Although council would later adopt a resolution, Business Administrator George Savastano and City Solicitor Dorothy McCrosson said even though no city representatives spoke during the hearings, Ocean City did indeed make its position known via a letter sent to the BPU and entered into the record.
“I want to correct something,” Savastano said, explaining McCrosson sent a letter dated April 27 to Fiordaliso saying the resort objected to Ocean Wind’s request and wanted that entered into the record.
He said the letter’s reasoning was self-evident, that local officials in Ocean City were in the unique position to understand the will and needs of local residents and property owners and were best able to determine the need for a diversion of Green Acres land.
Ocean City did not participate in or consent to Ocean Wind’s application before the BPU and the “BPU would be correct to assume Ocean City’s absence is indicative of a lack of local consensus that this application is in the best interest of Ocean City constituent groups including residents, business owners and taxpayers among others.”
The letter cited the “vast unknowns” associated with the project, including the impact on sea life, birds and the fishing industry, along with incomplete information about the project’s decommissioning.
“Until environmental impacts of these projects have been fully vetted by disinterested agencies, it is unreasonable for Ocean City, the community that will be most impacted by the proposed construction, to take a position on the project,” Savastano said, adding the letter included that the city reserved the right to challenge any and all approvals granted by the BPU.
Critieria used for the project “puts in stark relief Ocean Wind’s failure to consider the interest of the community most immediately burdened by this project. Ocean Wind has failed to make a compelling case that the proposed route cutting a swath across the width of Ocean City with a duct bank is the best alternative,” Savastano said.
The letter suggested running the transmission lines through Great Egg Harbor Bay even though it may be more expensive.
Council President Bobby Barr, who joined the public hearing after being told about it by DeVlieger, said Fiordaliso did not depict Ocean City’s opposition that way. “He said it plain as day,” Barr said.
McCrosson said the city did not read the letter into the record at the hearing but that the BPU had acknowledged receiving it.
“That’s a great letter. No ifs, ands or buts,” DeVlieger said.
He added that he went back and forth with Fiordaliso, who said Ocean City didn’t comment on these proceedings.
“It was a brilliant letter. I brought that letter up in the BPU meeting and read that into the record and said Ocean City did absolutely respond,” Hornick said. “President Joe what’s his name was the one who basically threw Ocean City under the bus.”
She and DeVlieger said it would be better in the future if someone did attend the hearings in person and that the city should help inform citizens about hearings and meetings since neither the BPU nor Ørsted was doing that.
“I wasn’t aware there was a hearing. I knew you sent letter but when he said you didn’t comment I was dumbfounded. The letter was excellent,” Barr said.
“I think we need to take every necessary step within our power, legally and otherwise, to stop this,” he said. “They have proven to be bad actors, in my opinion, not forthright, given the fact they asked for local approval one year prior to state and federal government reports coming out. Why? Why are you in such a hurry? Why aren’t you coming to educate our groups. What does that tell you? It tells you not everything is what it should be.”
Savastano said the city could not rely on Ørsted or the BPU for information and that the city should go to other agencies.
Council unanimously approves resolution
Ocean City Council unanimously approved a formal resolution opposing Ocean Wind’s request for easements across Green Acres land.
The resolution said council strongly opposes any easement across Green Acres land, any permits to be issued for that property, that it is inappropriate to grant these permits before environmental impact statements on Ocean Wind are completed, and that the project has other options, including running the transmission lines through the bay to attach to the power grid in Beesleys Point, Upper Township.
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff