New Bedford Ocean Port Ignored After Wind Turbine Accident

New Bedford Ocean Port Ignored After Wind Turbine Accident

Quonset Business Park, North Kingstown RI. Two 1500 foot wide channels

The New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal only has a legal clearance of 120 feet at the hurricane gates. The ocean port may never be used as a commercial wind turbine port. Ocean wind turbine “jack-up” barges are 127 feet and wider.

Massachusetts residents aren’t going to read about this accident .The accident happened the first day of construction.

The New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal at 113 million is going into what the owner, the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center says is phase two. Phase two is moving an AM radio station off 4 acres of PCB contaminated soil, building a rail link 2500 feet to the terminal and the purchase of crawler/ walking cranes. This alone is more than the original estimate of the entire terminal in 2010.

Massachusetts taxpayers are on the hook for another wind turbine fiasco. Falmouth, Massachusetts is ground zero for poorly placed wind turbine in USA.

The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center has led Massachusetts down a trail of catastrophic wind turbine failures

The monthly payment being paid by taxpayers on bonds borrowed by the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center is 187,500.00 per month for thirty years. The New Bedford Ocean Port can’t be leased for more than the current payments and tens of millions of taxpayer dollars are still needed to finish the fiasco.

Here is the accident story :

http://www.windaction.org/posts/43129-barge-accident-dents-deepwater-win...

Barge accident dents Deepwater wind farm foundationCredit : Providence Journal - Alex Kuffner - July 31, 2015Offshore Wind Safety Rhode Island

First, it was the weather. Rough seas forced the Providence company to push back until last Sunday the installation of the first steel foundation for the five-turbine wind farm off Block Island. Now, Deepwater is dealing with a construction mishap. Earlier this week, one of the barges being used in the project hit the latticework “jacket” foundation that had been placed in the water and dented one of its four hollow, tubular legs.

As it works to build the first offshore wind farm in the nation, Deepwater Wind is experiencing the potential difficulties of marine construction.

First, it was the weather. Rough seas forced the Providence company to push back until last Sunday the installation of the first steel foundation for the five-turbine wind farm off Block Island.

Now, Deepwater is dealing with a construction mishap. Earlier this week, one of the barges being used in the project hit the latticework “jacket” foundation that had been placed in the water and dented one of its four hollow, tubular legs.

“This is the kind of thing that can happen in construction projects, especially those offshore,” Deepwater said in a statement on Thursday.

It’s unclear how the company will repair the foundation, which was set to be secured to the ocean floor with piles this week. But Deepwater is not describing it as a major problem.

“Our flexible schedule provides us more than enough time to address things like bad weather or repairs such as this one, so our timeline remains on-track,” the company said.

Installation of the foundations is supposed to take eight weeks and would wrap up in mid- to late-September. Offshore work would pick up again next year when the wind turbines are put in place.

Last week, because of the choppy waters off Block Island, Deepwater was forced to tow the barge carrying the first set of foundation sections to a pier off the Quonset Business Park in North Kingstown to do preliminary rigging work that couldn’t be done at sea.

After the work was completed, the barge was taken back to the location of the wind farm on Saturday and by the next day the waters were calm enough for the foundation to be lowered by a crane onto the ocean bottom.

It came just in time for a previously-scheduled boat tour on Monday of the project site for U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, Gov. Raimondo and other elected leaders and state officials. Although the skies were overcast, the waters were relatively flat during the trip.

But tough weather conditions are expected to return in the coming days. So installation of the second foundation won’t begin until the weather clears, Deepwater said.

Source : http://www.providencejournal.com/article/20150730/NEWS/150739929/-1/brea...