The administrative law judges running an information session on the transmission lines for a wind farm proposed off Long Island had to repeatedly remind callers Thursday that the discussion was about the 11 miles of cable under the jurisdiction of the Department of Public Service. Not about a disastrous Ohio train derailment, municipal fiscal management or groundwater contamination at a U.S. Marine Corps base.

The cables for Empire Wind 2 would make landfall in the densely built barrier island community of Long Beach and connect to a substation in nearby Island Park (DPS case number 22-T-0346).

While the moderators struggled to keep the questions within scope, callers on the phone-in session were frustrated by the frequent lack of answers.

DPS staff and Equinor (NYSE:EQNR) officials opened the session with an overview of the review process for the 1.26-GW wind farm proposed by Equinor and BP (NYSE:BP) 15 to 30 miles off Long Beach. The developers began work on the proposal in 2017. They are hoping for federal approvals in early 2024 and state approvals later that year.

It includes three three-core 230-kV HVAC export cables running 7.7 miles in New York state waters; a cable landfall in Long Beach; three single-core export cables running 1.5 miles to a new onshore substation in Island Park; and up to three 345-kV HVAC cables running 1.7 miles from the substation to the point of interconnection — the existing substation at National Grid’s gas-fired E.F. Barrett Generation Station.

The cables would be underwater or underground except for a “cable bridge” crossing a narrow channel of water north of Island Park.

More than 100 people signed in for the virtual presentation. When it was done, several began firing off questions, not about suction hopper dredges or voltages, but about why this was being done to their community, and how bad the effects would be.

One question the residents didn’t ask: What role would the offshore wind turbines play in slowing climate change, which scientific consensus holds is an existential threat to their sea-level community of 35,000 people.

Most written comments submitted so far also have been against the proposal; only one caller Thursday offered support for the project.

Nevertheless, the developer is taking criticism in stride.

“Our projects benefit from input from members of the community in which we work,” Equinor Renewables US spokesperson Lauren Shane told NetZero Insider via email. “We continue to seek, and to receive, feedback from the community in these information sessions as part of our ongoing dialogue with all stakeholders as we progress Empire Wind, a project that will provide renewable energy to over one million New York homes.”

Few Answers

Because of the compartmentalization of the state and federal review processes, some of the questions Thursday did not pertain to the narrow scope of the DPS docket and DPS staff could not answer them. Other questions simply don’t have answers at this point in the process.

The first caller launched into a soliloquy sprinkled with a few questions, including a pointed: “What did we do to deserve this?” Another caller noted that other projects by the same developers — Beacon Wind and Empire Wind 1 — are making landfall at industrial sites in Astoria and Brooklyn and wondered why Empire Wind 2 had to run through dense residential neighborhoods.

That question — why here? — came up several more times and was never really answered.

The closest thing to an explanation came from an Equinor representative who said, without elaboration, that a variety of factors were considered as the project was designed. (In a report posted on the project website, however, the developers did outline the alternatives they considered, citing among other criteria the proximity to the preferred point of interconnection; “sediment dynamics (e.g., erosion)”; wildlife habitats, and “constructability complexities (e.g., long additional water crossings.”)

A summary of other questions and the responses from DPS and Equinor:

What impacts will such a large transmission line have on quality of life, property values and public health? Electromagnetic field modeling shows this project would be well below state standards.

What impact will this have on people who fish for a living or for subsistence? That will be part of the environmental review.

Will the wire run on the north or south side of east Broadway? It’s a corridor at this point in the process; we don’t know yet.

I want to know how close these electromagnetic situations are going to be to my kids … this is nonstop, 24 hours a day, gazillions of volts of electricity. At the moment it’s a corridor; that information will be in the application material.

I don’t mean to be rude but I’m not going through 6,000 pages. I’d like a simple answer: Is it going to be 100 feet from my babies or 50 feet?  At this time that level of information is not available.

I don’t want to be the next Camp Lejeune. Why are you running it through our residential area? I believe the applicant answered before.

The city has been mismanaging our money for decades. Can community benefits payments from the developer go directly to residents rather than the city? That’s beyond the scope of this review.

Will running the HVAC power cables a few feet below the electrified Long Island Rail Road tracks create a derailment risk? The railroad will conduct a rigorous safety review.

What happens if the cables catch fire or explode? Has that risk been evaluated? The project will adhere to all national safety and other standards for cables.

If there is an earthquake or natural disaster, do these things have the potential for blowing up our island? I’m neither a seismologist nor someone versed in that type of disaster. However, we’ll be submitting a detailed fire and safety protocol — later in the process.

This hearing is about the cables, but you can’t answer if a cable goes on fire, if it’s going to blow up and how big of an area that will damage. We don’t have an electrical engineer with us on the line, but I believe that the risk of an underground cable exploding is relatively low.

The information session wrapped at the two-hour mark. Two public comment sessions are planned via WebEx on March 9.