Opponents of an underground electrical cable now being installed in Wainscott have sued in a last-ditch effort to block its progress. Once completed, electricity generated by the offshore South Fork Wind farm turbines will pass through a portion of Wainscott on its way to the power grid. The on-land route begins at Beach Lane and makes its way to the Long Island Rail Road tracks, then east to an existing power authority substation at Cove Hollow Road near Route 114 in East Hampton.
The lawsuit claims that the wind farm developer sidestepped a required environmental study. Specifically, the opponents say they are concerned about groundwater pollution like that discovered emanating from a firefighting training facility near East Hampton Airport and whether it might be spread during the cable excavation.
This is a relatively new tack in an effort that has included at varying times the opponents’ worries about whales, commercial fishing, traffic disruption, reliability, and electric rates, to name but a few. Given the shifting range of their objections, it is difficult to figure out what exactly the people who brought the lawsuit are actually for or against. Consider one of their earlier positions, that all of the above would not matter if the cable came ashore elsewhere in East Hampton Town, for example in Amagansett or at Napeague State Park. With such a contradictory array of beefs, it has been difficult to take much of their positions seriously.
In duration and process, the work will be more extensive than an ongoing gas main installation along East Hampton Main Street, mostly because of its larger scale. Excavation at intervals along the route will be necessary for service access vaults as the trenching proceeds. However, Orsted-Eversource, the project developers, have said they would restore the roadsides to their previous appearance at the completion of the installation. And, as on Main Street, temporary lane closings will be necessary.
Wainscott residents experienced a similar disruption recently as new water mains were run throughout the hamlet in response to the drinking water contamination by perfluorinated or polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFOAs, from the fire training site. Though larger, the water main project did not create anywhere near the anxiety surrounding the wind farm — nor prompt objectors to call in a high-powered public relations firm for a time. All that said, one last vetting of the developers’ environmental safeguards for the onshore portion of the cable, as the lawsuit demands, is not a bad thing, even if the opponents’ actual motivation for their dislike of the project is murky.