Government Briefs 01.03.19

East Hampton Town

Committee Opposes Wind Cable

The Wainscott Citizens Advisory Committee has taken a formal stand against Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind’s plan to land a cable from its proposed South Fork Wind Farm at the ocean beach at the end of Beach Lane in that hamlet. 

In a Dec. 24 letter to the East Hampton Town Board, Barry Frankel and Susan Macy of the committee cite “grave concerns among residents and property owners,” such as changes in Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind’s plan allowing an increase from 90 to 130 megawatts of electricity to travel underground through the hamlet to the Long Island Power Authority’s East Hampton substation; the size of the transition vault to be buried at the Beach Lane road end, and a “lack of convincing scientifically-based studies easing concerns with regard to beach erosion, cable damage and/or exposure,” and the electromagnetic frequency emanating from it. Orsted U.S. has previously been known as Deepwater Wind in The Star.

More than 1,000 residents, property owners, business owners, and renters have signed a petition objecting to the Beach Lane landing, the letter notes. Members of the C.A.C. also feel that Orsted “has not been straightforward about the scale of the project and its impacts on Beach Lane and throughout the local community,” the letter says. 

In its application to the New York State Public Service Commission, Orsted listed Beach Lane as the transmission cable’s preferred landing site, but included state-owned land at Hither Hills State Park on Napeague as an alternative. The Wainscott C.A.C.’s letter urges the town board to insist on the latter site. 

Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind has offered a community benefits package worth more than $8 million to the town in exchange for whatever easement and lease the town board and trustees deem necessary to grant for the company’s plans at Beach Lane