Scrutinize Benefits Package

The East Hampton Town Trustees are reviewing an updated draft of a “community benefits” package from Deepwater Wind and have appointed four trustees to choose an attorney to help examine it.

The Rhode Island company seeks to build the 15-turbine offshore South Fork Wind Farm some 30 miles off Montauk and has promised the town $8.5 million in sustainability programs and infrastructure improvements in exchange for an easement allowing it to land a transmission cable at an ocean beach in Wainscott and bury it between there and a Long Island Power Authority substation in East Hampton. 

Francis Bock, the trustees’ clerk, said on Tuesday that the new draft proposal contained “a few enhancements” but “nothing extravagant”; however, “there were some details that I think we need some wording changes on before we can even consider it.” He declined a request to share the document. 

The trustees have debated the wind farm for more than a year and hosted many discussions at its meetings and those of its harbor management committee. Mr. Bock, however, has questioned the trustees’ jurisdiction over the ocean beach in Wainscott. Last month, he said that records indicate that the body turned Beach Lane over to the commissioners of highways in the 1880s. The trustees have not conducted a title search to prove ownership, he said. 

Rick Drew, Jim Grimes, John Aldred, and Susan McGraw Keber will comprise the committee charged with seeking an attorney to handle the benefits proposal. The move follows the town board’s vote last Thursday to retain outside counsel to negotiate the granting of an easement and the community benefits package. 

While commercial fishermen are near unanimous in opposing the wind farm, none of the four people who urged the trustees not to grant a lease allowing the transmission cable to make landing at the end of Beach Lane in Wainscott on Monday make their living on the water. 

Michael McDonald of the East End Resilience Network told the trustees that while he supports wind power and “we have to move into renewable energy to deal with climate change,” his initial support for the South Fork Wind Farm faded on closer examination. 

“If they were delivering a solution to peak demand, that would be great,” Mr. McDonald said of the South Fork’s high demand for electricity during the summer months. “They’re not doing that. In reality, the hottest days of the year have essentially no wind, so this is not a solution for peak demand,” which he said was the purpose of LIPA’s South Fork request for proposals, from which the South Fork Wind Farm was selected. 

In fact, he said, the wind farm as proposed will not deliver nearly enough power to meet the summer demand, but LIPA ratepayers will nonetheless be saddled with a high fixed rate throughout the wind farm’s life span despite a predicted steep fall in the cost of wind power. 

He also criticized the town board, which voted 3-2 to support the granting of an easement last Thursday “without doing appropriate due diligence, and in addition to that, putting out public statements that say that there is no environmental concern about Deepwater Wind.” The latter assertion may have been a reference to a July 17 memo issued jointly by the town’s Natural Resources and Planning Departments that concludes with a finding that granting the easement would have “no adverse environmental impact on natural resources within the town’s jurisdiction.” 

Like Mr. McDonald, Tom Bjurlof criticized the town board for its move last Thursday. He too urged the trustees to allow Deepwater Wind to submit permit applications to federal and state agencies without first granting access rights, as the developer has sought. He urged the trustees to file for intervener status under Article VII, a review process under the state public service law covering applications to construct and operate a major electric transmission facility. The trustees had previously indicated that they would file for intervener status. 

David Gruber, who is running for town board, repeated criticism he voiced at the town board meeting last Thursday and decried what he said was the popular misconception that granting an easement to Deepwater Wind will enhance the town’s ability to participate in influencing the wind farm’s ultimate outcome. “I can’t tell you exactly who’s conning whom here,” he said, “but we are collectively being conned.” 

Clint Plummer, Deepwater Wind’s vice president of development, said in an email yesterday that the proposed wind farm is “a year-round energy solution for the South Fork” and “a major part of a portfolio of energy solutions selected specifically by LIPA to address the South Fork’s need for new sources of energy, especially during peak energy demand in the summer months.” LIPA’s South Fork request for proposals “was not intended to supply all the energy used on the South Fork, but rather to satisfy a particular energy need within a certain time frame. Independent energy professionals determined that this portfolio is the most affordable solution to meet the South Fork’s specific energy challenge. Every other option that was considered would cost ratepayers more.” LIPA ratepayers will only be charged for the power the wind farm delivers, he said, “which LIPA has stated is comparable to the price of its other renewables.”