New Jersey’s 1,100-MW offshore Ocean Wind project faced vigorous opposition from fishermen, shore-town homeowners and tourism-related businesses, and support from trade groups and unions, at three U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) public hearings held this month to determine whether the agency should grant approval to the state’s first offshore project.

Speakers at the hearings, the most recent of which took place Wednesday, voiced an array of fears over developer Ørsted’s proposal to plant 98 wind turbines in the ocean bed 15 miles off the Jersey Shore, as the federal agency gathered public comment for an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).

Speakers worried about the potential for damage to the undersea environment for fish, whales and dolphins, the destruction of fishing beds, and a drop in tourism for New Jersey shore communities, fearing visitors will go elsewhere to enjoy the ocean rather than on a beach looking out at a windmill cluster.

Bob Stern, who represented New Jersey Coalition for Wind Without Impact, based in Long Beach Island, said BOEM’s decision would shape not only Ørsted’s $1.6 billion Ocean Wind project, but all similar projects in the future. Ocean Wind, with 900-feet high turbines, is the first of six offshore projects that New Jersey expects to approve by 2035 in an effort to generate 7,500 MW from offshore wind. The state is aiming to achieve 100% clean energy by 2050.

“The advent of the huge, large turbines we have today will result in significant visible impacts to Atlantic City and other shore communities,” Stern told the first of the BOEM hearings on April 13. “And it will result, based on numerous studies, in significant losses in tourism, property values and rentals.”

Diverse Economy

Yet the project drew strong support from the Laborers International Union of North America, whose members build infrastructure projects, and environmental groups such as Environment New Jersey and the New Jersey Work Environment Council, a coalition of labor and environmental organizations.

Several trade groups said the project would bolster the local economy, including the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce, several South Jersey chambers and the Southern New Jersey Development Council. Some said the project, by creating construction and technology jobs, would reduce the area’s economic reliance on tourism and Atlantic City’s casinos.

“It’s absolutely imperative that we diversify this local economy and bring that type of employment in here,” said Max Slusher, business development officer for the Atlantic County Alliance. That would, he said, “keep us from backsliding into the economic dislocations that we’ve had over the last decade.”

The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU), which picked Denmark-based Ørsted’s project to be the state’s first in 2019, says the project will generate $1.17 billion in economic benefits for the state. The board says the project will create more than 15,000 jobs over its 20-year lifespan.

Construction on the project, which is quarter-owned by Public Service Enterprise Group, is expected to begin in 2022, with operations scheduled to start in 2024.

The BPU in June expects to announce the successful bidder from two solicitations for a second OSW project that is expected to generate 1,200 to 2,400 MW. One was submitted by Ørsted and the other is a joint venture between affiliates of the Anglo/Dutch oil giant Shell and France’s EDF.

BOEM, which held public hearings on April 13, 15 and 20, expects to release a draft EIS in Spring 2022, and the final report a year later.

Engaging Stakeholders

Acting Commissioner Shawn LaTourette of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, which is also collecting public comment on the project, said Wednesday that the state is working to engage all stakeholders in the permitting process.

“Folks fear what they don’t know,” he told a panel on OSW development at a conference organized by the Atlantic Council, a global think tank. “The idea of steel in the water to a commercial or recreational fishery that has used a particular fishing ground going back generations — that is a frightening concept. And folks wonder how it will affect them, how it will affect their livelihood.”

LaTourette said that in general, his strategy for developing infrastructure projects is “engage, engage, engage upfront, so that you eliminate the risk to any critical path item.” He said he first tries to reduce the impact of a project, then tries to minimize the impact when it can’t be avoided, and finally to try to “mitigate the impacts.”

“As we go and put that steel in the water, it will have an inevitable impact to the ecosystem,” he said and offered some theoretical solutions while the ecosystem recovers. “Do we facilitate artificial reef development? Do we help the fishing community to find other fishing grounds of similar nature in the meantime? It’s a thought process that we all have to go through together.”

Wind Farm on the Horizon

Opponents of the Ocean Wind project said it carries too many unknowns. Among them are whether electromagnetic waves from the power cables linking the wind turbines to the grid would impact fish, and whether they would affect people who live near where the cables will come onshore: grid connections at the BL England power plant and now closed nuclear generator at Oyster Creek. Ørsted, in response, said submarine power cables are common and emanate a magnetic field that is no stronger than that from a household appliance such as a hair dryer or refrigerator.

Although Ørsted’s video simulations of the view from different Jersey Shore locations suggest the turbines will be barely visible, Duane Watlington, founder of Vacation Rentals Jersey Shore, said he did not believe it.

“[Visitors] pay over and over again every summer to see our beautiful beaches, clean ocean water and unobstructed view of the eastern horizon,” he said. If it’s dotted with turbines, “vacationers who rent at the shore might not return,” he said, urging BOEM to conduct a study on the impact of the project on tourism, and specifically the shore rental business.

Trisha Conti, one of a group of opponents to the project who have created a website, saveourshorelineNJ.com, said the group is concerned that electric bills will go up by between 25 and 100%. Greg Cudnik, the owner of a 15-employee business that runs recreational fishing charters, agreed.

“New Jersey ratepayers are being forced into much more expensive energy, with higher generation, interconnection and transmission costs,” he said, adding that the recreational fishing business will be hurt by the wind farm.

However, Paul Ivan, the captain of a charter boat for fishermen, speaking at the BOEM session Wednesday, said he believes that “responsibly developed offshore wind farms will greatly benefit the fishing off of the New Jersey coast.”

“Burning fewer fossil fuels leads to cleaner, healthier waters, which benefit all of us,” he said. “More structures in the water means more fish habitat.”

Ørsted spokesperson Gabriel Martinez said the project would mean a residential bill would increase by $1.46 a month, and a commercial bill would go up by about $13.05 a month. He said the company’s experience at other wind projects it operates is that the turbines can help fishing by acting as a reef.

“Ørsted has built many wind farms in Europe where the company has been able to coexist with the fishing community,” he said. Likewise, he said, studies have shown that tourists do not shy away from areas with wind generation projects.

“Offshore wind farms have actually proven to be attractive for sightseeing tours and represent a significant opportunity in the rapidly growing ecotourism sector of the hospitality division,” he said.

Cost of Doing Nothing

Suzanne Hornick, a local of Ocean City, an 11,000-resident community on a barrier island that looks out at the proposed wind farm site, was one of several speakers who expressed concern that the construction of the wind turbines could damage the cold pool, a layer of cold water on the ocean bottom that runs along the mid-Atlantic Coast and is key to the life cycle of some fish.

“If this affects our cold pool, which we know it will, and the recreational fishermen and the commercial fishermen can’t fish or can’t bring the volume of fish, that’s going to affect our restaurants” and other businesses that rely on a flow of tourists, she said.  “If this ruins our tourism, it ruins our community,” she said.

But Jody Stewart told the Wednesday meeting that her experience of seeing her home flood during Superstorm Sandy in October 2012, had convinced her that the state had no choice but to back Ocean Wind.

“I lost my home in Sandy, and all that was important to me,” she said. “If there is anything I have learned, it is we cannot continue to do nothing. We need to move forward with renewable energy. How long do we continue to delay projects, put off moving forward, all the while communities like my own continue to struggle with sunny day flooding?”