U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew (NJ-02), supported by U.S. Rep. Scott Perry (PA-10), held a field hearing in Brigantine on Tuesday, Aug. 13, to continue his public opposition to the Garden State’s efforts to build large offshore wind farms off the New Jersey coast.
Brigantine Mayor Vince Sera played host for the hearing and introduced the event by calling offshore wind “one of the most important issues facing us on the East Coast.” He said state and federal officials pushing the offshore wind agenda “lied to us” in order to move ahead with projects that “make no sense.”
Sera’s remarks set the tone of a meeting that was uniformly against the current offshore wind agenda. Picking up on those remarks Van Drew described the long oceanfront along the New Jersey coast as “a gift from God,” which he asserted is being squandered so a few people can make money off it. “That is what this is all about,” Van Drew added.
Four witnesses gave testimony at the hearing; all were opposed to the offshore wind initiative as it currently operates.
Dianne Solomon, a past member of the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, argued that the BPU is an “economic regulator” seeking to ensure ratepayers in the state have access to reliable energy at affordable prices. She said that the board had strayed from its proper agenda, getting involved in making energy policy.
Solomon asserted her belief that technology may someday provide answers for the problems that plague the energy transformation agenda of the state Department of Environmental Protection, breakthrough in areas of electricity storage, as an example. Until then a successful transition to 100% green energy is a proposition that is “questionable at best,” she said.
Robert Rand, founder and owner of Rand Acoustics LLC, spoke next on noise pollution and its effect on fish and sea mammals. Rand accused the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management of writing rules for acceptable noise levels that make use of short distances in order to hide the fact that noise levels for construction, installation and ongoing operations of giant wind turbines are way above levels normally used to prevent harm to the ecosystem.
Nantucket community leader Amy DiSibio focused on the recent events in Nantucket where an active turbine had a blade break, littering the ocean and eventually nearby beaches with large amounts of debris. She said six truckloads of debris have so far been removed from Nantucket beaches. DiSibio claimed that Vineyard Wind, the wind farm with the faulty blade, kept news about the incident from the public until the debris washing up on beaches made it undeniable. She cited examples of failed blades in wind farms in Europe, arguing the Nantucket experience is not a one-off.
Finally Meghan Lapp, a representative of Sea Freeze in Rhode Island, concentrated much of her testimony on what she termed BOEM’s relaxation of stringent requirements to have an approved decommissioning plan and a financial bond to support that activity. She said the departure and decommissioning bonds are the assurance that funds are available for the decommissioning process if the wind company abandon’s the wind farm.
Lapp pointed to similar bonds required from gas and oil producers who may be using offshore rigs. According to Lapp, in the case of wind farm developers BOEM has begun waiving the financial bonds, often allowing the requirement to slip to a point 15 years into the life of an existing wind farm. She called it a “massive suppression of a fiscal rule” for the benefit of wind farm developers only.
The two-hour hearing had a final phase in which both Van Drew and Perry asked questions of the panel concerning the testimony. During the Q&A, each member of the panel responded to questions by reinforcing earlier testimony.
Solomon placed emphasis on rate hikes that are part of the deals struck with offshore wind companies and which kick in when the wind farms begin producing energy. In effect, she said, it’s a guarantee that energy will cost more in order to allow the companies to achieve profit goals and recover expenses.
Rand spoke of take authorizations and acceptable harassment levels of sea life that are based on BOEM models rather than actual data of disturbances. Noise levels, he said, will be much higher than at present and would be allowed given the context of the computer models used for enforcement of noise laws.
DiSibio expressed disappointment that many environmental groups have failed to raise objections to expected environmental damage. She argued that a partial reason for this is a pattern of donations to such groups from wind farm developers. She called them “payoffs” to groups that otherwise should be “environmental guardians.”
Lapp returned to her argument that BOEM has created two different playing fields, one for wind developers and another for fossil fuel developers, yet she added the underlying laws, like the Marine Mammal Protection Act, are the same for both.
For Van Drew, “The deeper we dig into the impacts of offshore wind, the more troubling the findings become.” He added in a statement following the hearings, “The state of New Jersey and the Board of Public Utilities keep pushing for these projects, even though each new one drives up costs and shifts more risks to taxpayers.”
The Offshore Wind Alliance, an industry group that bills itself as “the voice of the offshore wind industry in the Garden State,” sees the hearings in a different light. Paulina O’Connor, the alliance’s executive director, released a statement saying the hearing fell “short of true representation on the topic.” O’Connor added that “the invited guests were selected to present a specific perspective that does not adequately represent the facts regarding offshore wind.”
O’Connor states “the value proposition” as the alliance sees it: “Clear, reliable, domestic energy production, good-paying union jobs, and significant public health and economic benefits to communities across the Garden State.”
The Atlantic Shores South project was the impetus for the hearing with its plan to build a wind farm of almost 200 turbines off the coast of Brigantine and as close as 8.7 miles from shore. Yet, the focus of the testimony quickly went beyond the specific project at hand and concentrated on the dangers which those opposed to offshore wind see in the state and federal efforts to use offshore wind as a major source of renewable energy.
Van Drew said, “I am committed to continuing this fight.”
Contact the reporter, Vince Conti, at vconti@cmcherald.com.
