New Bedford Ocean Wind Port A Billion Dollars

Massachusetts Taxpayers Already Paying Heavy Toll For Cape Wind

New Bedford Ocean Wind Port A Billion Dollars ? How Much Is Too Much ?

On October 20,2010 Governor Deval Patrick announced the building of the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal. The projected cost of the project was 35 million dollars. The project is located in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

The project now appears to be another in a long string of failed renewable energy projects in Massachusetts.

The ocean wind turbine project was supposed to be complete by the end of this month but has put off the completion date until some time in 2015.

The hurricane gate only has a legal clearance of 120 feet wide and only one Jack up barge in the world can fit through the gate. The special barge called the RDMacDonald is being built in New Jersey.

This leaves the question of how one small minature barge can build 130 ocean wind turbines.

The channel outside the hurricane gates hasn’t been dredged since 1955 and may not get dredged by the Army Corps of Engineers until at least 2016.

The New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal was sold to the legislature and bonding committee that Cape Wind would use New Bedford as a its home port, construction and staging.

Quonset Point, Rhode Island has signed a $10,000.00 lease with Cape Wind . The 150 metric ton cranes in Rhode Island were built with the help of a federal Tiger grant of 22.3 million dollars. The cranes are more than adequate for the 3.6 megawatt gear driven wind turbines ordered by Cape Wind.

Today there are still NO large cranes in New Bedford with the completion date only days away.

The Quonset Point project will start the Deep Water wind project as well as the Cape Wind project.

This entertains the thought of why the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center is building a commercial ocean wind turbine port in New Bedford when a port is already built a short distance away in Rhode Island.

New Bedford never was the port permitted by the federal government and still has NO approval from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

It’s long been known if Cape Wind wanted to use New Bedford as the staging construction port they would have to file a new biological review with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. The last set of reviews took over ten years.

Cape Wind did file a project revision with the BOEM, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management on September 17, 2014 but the public has never seen the request.

The New Bedford project went out to bid at under 100 million now the project is way over budget .

The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center will not comment on the current financial outlook.

A radio station, antenna and 1600 cubic yards of toxic material still need to be moved.

The state of Massachusetts in the past three months has played a game of “Three-card Monte “ changing the name of the port in an effort to confuse the news media from looking into the ongoing financial fiasco.

The port has been called the South Terminal, New Bedford Commerce Terminal, Southeast Commerce Terminal, New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal, Massachusetts Marine Commerce Terminal and Massachusetts Marine Commerce Terminal in New Bedford.

The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center is undertaking the management of the development of the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal.The Director of Offshore Wind Sector Development for the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center is Bill White.

Questions are already being asked of how they can put “lipstick on a pig” and the project costs could already double the 100 million dollar estimate which is six times the 35 million dollar estimate back in 2010.

Now like the “Big Dig” in Boston the New Bedford ocean wind turbine project is looking like the “Big Splash.

The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center looks like the new “Big Dig” contractors.

Massachusetts officials have known all along that state projects like the “Big Dig” which started out at 3 billion usually come in 6 to 7 times there projected cost.

While researching the latest Cape Wind story and the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal you get the sense that the Patrick administration sold the Legislature on the NB terminal using Cape Wind.

Cape Wind is still facing legal challenges as they have for the past ten years. A Boston newspaper recently spoke of legal action all the way to the US Supreme Court.

There is a May 8 2013 news story in which Massachusetts Secretary of Energy & Environmental Affairs Richard Sullivan testified before the Massachusetts House Bonding Committee. The bond was to build the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal. The projected cost was less than 100 million.

Folks, The project is well over 100 million and who knows if it could reach a billion dollars before its complete. Massachusetts taxpayers are paying for it. When do the Massachusetts taxpayers wake up.

How much is too much ?

You have to ask why the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center will not comment on any finances with the ongoing terminal project, completion date and what happened to the advertised rail link to the project that’s now in phase two of the project.

Generally when state officials refuse comment on finances the projects are financially out of control. Why isn’t anyone asking questions.

The final BOEM, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management report 2009 and the federal permit designate Quonset Point, Rhode Island as the primary port. Not New Bedford.

The spokesperson for Siemens wind company Casper Kvitzau or Siemens wind company has not commented on the ongoing fiasco in New Bedford.

In the last week there have been many stories about Cape Wind and the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal of what ever name they call it today. Cape Wind has declined to comment.

Cape Wind has signed a lease option and put down $ 10,000.00 on 14 acres of land at Quonset Point, Rhode Island and New Bedford ?

The bottom line : How much is the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal Going To Cost ?

Massachusetts Secretary of Energy & Environmental Affairs Richard Sullivan tells the news media and the House Bonding Committee that New Bedford will be the primary staging port for Cape Wind. Notes : Massachusetts Secretary of Energy & Environmental Affairs Richard Sullivan story :

By State House News Service
on May 08, 2013

http://www.masslive.com/news/boston/index.ssf/2013/05/massachusetts_official_absolut.html “I am absolutely convinced that New Bedford will be the primary staging port for Cape Wind”