Ocean City Pushes Against Offshore Wind Farm Cables On Beaches

OCEAN CITY, NJ — Ocean City is still fighting against the proposed offshore wind farm that would put turbines on the coastline and run cables under the beach and through town.

An online public hearing was held by the Board of Public Utilities (BPU) where representatives of both Ocean Wind 1 and Ocean City shared arguments about the cables potentially going through protected Green Acres land.

Ocean Wind 1 is seeking authorization to build over the Green Acres land. BPU President Joseph Fiordaliso said that the Board is committed to making this a "fair and transparent process."

Cables need to be on land because that is where the people using the electricity live, said Greg Eisenstark, the lawyer representing Ocean Wind, LLC. He argued that these cables are a reasonable necessity and emphasized that they would be deep underground, not visible or heard. "You won't really know that they're there," Eisenstark said.

City Solicitor Dorothy McCrosson disagreed, outlining alternatives other than going through Green Acres land. She said that Ocean Wind chose this route because it was the cheapest one, calling it a "self-serving approach at the cost of Ocean City."

Instead, McCrosson suggested a different route using the Great Egg Harbor Inlet. This route had been eliminated by Ocean Wind 1, but McCrosson said that Ocean City offers alternatives to those reasons. "The overwhelming benefit of utilizing the Great Egg Harbor route is the utter lack of disturbance to the citizenry of Ocean City," McCrosson said.

McCrosson said that Ocean Wind relies on a "hastily adopted rule," a law that Gov. Phil Murphy signed last year that allows offshore wind projects to receive regulatory approvals without getting consent from municipalities first. Ocean City has been vocal about this, saying the law takes away "home rule."

McCrosson "respectfully" questioned the authority of the BPU to grant the petition, instead saying that the "contested case" should be referred to the Office of Administrative Law.

She also said that decisions should be deferred until BOEM releases their final Environmental Impact Statement, of which the draft was recently released. Read More: Public Comment Opens For Ocean City Windfarm Project

Eisenstark took issue with McCrosson's points, objecting to her statement with issues being introduced at the "very last stage" and said he is going to file a formal objection to have most of her comments struck from the record. He repeatedly called her comments "entirely inappropriate."

He also said that the Great Egg Harbor alternative is "not preferable for a host of reasons," including environmental and marine traffic.

McCrosson that the points she made in the hearing were only expansions of previous points Ocean City has made, as well as the BOEM DEIS.

You can watch the entire hearing below.