The proposal was agreed to and adopted by the New York State Public Service Commission and more than a dozen stake holders. The transmission line is the first approved project in New York State to connect to an offshore wind farm and is expected to be operational by 2023.
The proposed 132 MW South Fork is proposed to construct up to 15 wind turbines with a capacity of 6 to 12 MW per turbine that will be located offshore approximately 19 miles southeast of Block Island, Rhode Island, and 35 miles east of Montauk Point, New York. Developers expect the project to be fully permitted by January 2022, with construction activities ramping up soon thereafter and the wind farm in operations by the end of 2023. It is anticipated to power 70,000 average homes annually.
“When people say it’s never been done before, New York shows them how to get it done, and this transmission power line—the first of its kind in the state—will showcase what the future of energy will look like,” Governor Cuomo said. “Offshore wind is a critical component of our ambitious green energy vision, and this plan holds the blueprint that will move us a step closer to making this vision a reality.”
…In addition to requiring that the cable will be buried at least 30 feet beneath the surface at Wainscot Beach, where the project is to make landfall, other conditions will limit construction periods to off-peak seasons to ensure construction-related impacts are minimized.
The Complaint (available online, click here) alleges that BOEM––
- Recklessly ignored PFAS contamination that poses a risk to public health and the environment and exposed construction workers and residents to such contamination without regard to safety or the environment (Complaint, ¶¶ 48-108);
- Permitted South Fork Wind to install underground infrastructure, including vaults the size of forty-foot shipping containers (encroaching into groundwater), in a square mile with more PFAS-contaminated drinking water wells than anywhere else in Suffolk County (Complaint, ¶¶ 532-540);
- Allowed South Fork Wind to install miles of underground concrete duct banks and vaults without regard to potential adverse impacts on the Town’s sole source of drinking water (the Upper Glacial and Magothy aquifers) or the surface waters and related habitats of Georgica Pond and Wainscott Pond (Complaint, ¶¶ 365-376);
- Failed to consider evidence (provided by South Fork Wind) stating that concrete materials used in construction may exacerbate, prolong, enhance, and spread harmful PFAS contaminants (Complaint, ¶¶ 390-404);
- Blindly relied upon South Fork Wind’s information in violation of statutory regulations mandating that BOEM independently evaluate and verify such information (Complaint, first through sixth claim for relief, ¶¶ 441-530);
- Heedlessly relied on demonstrably false presumptions to justify fabricated purposes and needs that fatally corrupted the integrity of the review (Complaint, ¶¶ 469-483);
- Asserted that South Fork Wind’s contract with LIPA resulted from a “technology-neutral competitive bidding process” contrary to fact (Complaint, ¶¶ 281-292);
- Turned a blind eye to bid rigging designed to stifle competition and increase the price of power to consumers (Complaint, ¶¶ 281-358);
- Relied upon the false assertion that South Fork Wind designed its project to contribute to renewable energy legislation enacted three-and-a-half years after South Fork Wind submitted its proposed design for consideration in the South Fork RFP (Complaint, ¶¶ 136-150);
- Adopted a “Contract Goal” that expressly excludes minorities, women, and service-disabled veterans who own businesses from participating in South Fork Wind’s project (Exhibit Q- Amended PPA, at p. 16-1, PDF p. 159, section II, click here);
- Failed to consider an economically, environmentally, and technically superior alternative that would provide the same renewable energy at less than half the price (complaint ¶¶ 252-272);
- Endorsed a campaign designed to deceive the public into believing that the cost of energy from South Fork Wind was “about 16 cents per kWh,” contradicting LIPA internal documents that show the cost to ratepayers is 22 cents per kWh (Exhibit R- News 12 Interview click here, and complaint ¶¶ 273-280);
- Excluded from its accounting of economic impacts is the project cost of $2 billion, thereby concealing the fact that for every dollar South Fork Wind puts into the economy, it is withdrawing out of the economy more than four times that amount (complaint Introduction at pp. 5-6, ¶¶ 121-132, 180-203);
- Overlooked South Fork Wind’s flawed and uneconomic design that specifies the installation of four times more transmission per megawatt capacity than the average of three offshore wind projects in the same area (see Appendix 4, Table 1, click here, and Complaint, ¶¶ 225-229);
- Disregarded evidence provided by the South Fork Wind’s (indirect) owners, Ørsted and Eversource, admitting that “[s]mall initial projects are not likely to deliver cost savings. Due to diseconomies of scale, the costs per unit of energy for projects of 100 MW and 200 MW in size [South Fork Wind is 130 MW] are significantly higher than those for 400 MW projects.” (Complaint, ¶¶ 219-229);
- Ignored adverse economic impacts that fall disproportionally on lower-income families in contravention of executive orders on environmental justice (Complaint, ¶¶ 204-217); and
- Neglected Federal Consistency CZMA Enforceable Policy 27 (among others). Enforceable Policy 27 reads: “Siting of any new non-renewable energy facilities in the East Hampton waterfront area should be limited to those necessary to serve the needs of the residents of East Hampton only. Due to the environmental sensitivity of the Town, its location at the extreme eastern end of Long Island and the configuration of the peninsula, it would at best be an inefficient utilization of resources to generate non-renewable energy to serve residents of other localities to the west” (see Complaint, ¶¶ 405-410).
