EnviroPolitics Blog

New York contracts for nation’s largest supply of offshore wind energy

The only commercial offshore wind farm in the United States is near Block Island, R.I. CreditCreditChang W. Lee/The New York Times

Ivan Penn reports for the New York Times

New York State, which last month passed an ambitious law to reduce the emissions that cause climate change, said Thursday that it had reached an agreement for two large offshore wind projects.

The wind projects, to be built off the coast of Long Island, represent a big step forward for a technology that has been slow to take off in the United States because of local opposition and high costs. Experts have said offshore turbines, which are used extensively in Northern Europe, hold great promise because the wind tends to be stronger and more consistent offshore than on land.

Wind farms are a major energy source in the United States, providing about 7 percent of all electricity last year, up from about 2 percent in 2010. But almost all of those turbines are on land. By comparison, Britain expects to get 10 percent of its electricity from offshore wind next year, up from less than 1 percent in 2010.

The New York projects will start operation within the next five years and have the capacity to produce 1,700 megawatts of electricity, accounting for about 20 percent of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s overall goal for offshore wind.

The wind projects, one of which will be 14 miles south of Jones Beach and the other 30 miles north of Montauk, are meant to be an important part of the state’s plan to get 70 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030. The projects will be built by a division of Equinor, the Norwegian oil and gas company, and a joint venture between Orsted, a Danish company, and Eversource Energy, an American firm.

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“With this agreement, New York will lead the way in developing the largest source of offshore wind power in the nation,” Mr. Cuomo said. “Today we are true to the New York legacy — to lead the way forward, to govern with vision and intelligence, to set a new standard and to match our words with action.”

Mr. Cuomo also signed a bill on Thursday that the Legislature passed last month requiring New York to eliminate net greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Developers of offshore wind farms have long struggled to win the support of Americans. Some projects foundered because electricity from offshore turbines generally costs a lot more than power from turbines on land. Politicians and coastal-property owners have also successfully opposed projects that they claimed would obstruct the picturesque views from East Coast shorelines.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the liberal Massachusetts Democrat, who died in 2009, famously opposed a proposed offshore wind installation near Cape Cod. Other elected officials, including President Trump, have also objected to wind farms. (Mr. Trump, who once called climate change a “hoax,” unsuccessfully opposed an offshore wind project near one of his golf courses in Scotland.)

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If you thought NJDEP was rash in banning swimming in algae bloom lakes, read this

Boaters on Greenwood Lake in New Jersey. — Boaters on Greenwood Lake

By Scott Fallon, North Jersey News

Bacteria levels from a harmful algae bloom at Greenwood Lake are as much as 10 times higher than the state health standard, test results show.

Water samples taken Monday from the New Jersey-side of the lake show cyanobacteria levels at 212,000 cells per milliliter, significantly more than the safe threshold of 20,000 cells per milliliter, according to lab results posted by the state Department of Environmental Protection.

That was the highest reading recorded from water samples taken at four sites that has prompted an advisory against swimming or any contact with the water at the lake that spans nine miles from Passaic County into Orange County, New York.

A beach on Greenwood Lake, NY on Wednesday, August 8, 2018.

The other results were still well above the state standard, at 61,000 in the northern section of the New Jersey side of the lake, 90,000 in a middle section and 148,000 cells per milliliter at Browns Point, a park on the lake in West Milford.

The lab results show bacteria levels rose this week from samples taken July 10. In one case the numbers doubled

The highest reading at Lake Hopatcong — another major recreational lake under siege by an algae bloom — was 179,000 cells per milliliter taken on June 27 from Mt. Arlington Beach.

On a conference call with reporters Thursday morning, DEP officials said that while the high cell count is concerning, it is hard to compare whether one outbreak is worse than another.

“The numbers are going to rise and fall throughout the event,” said Robert Newby, a DEP microbiologist.

DEP officials said they suspect a combination of heavy rainfall, rising temperatures and climate change contributed to some of North Jersey’s largest lakes being overwhelmed with algae, but said there was no definitive answer as to why it’s happening this summer.

Several lakes in other Northeast states, including New York and Pennsylvania, are being inundated with algae blooms, said Bruce Friedman, DEP’s director of water monitoring standards.

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Big ships and big dollars lie ahead for wind energy developers looking to cash in on East Coast waters

By Kirk Moore in WorkBoat

Norway-based Fred.Olsen Windcarrier provided its construction vessel Brave Turn to build the Block Island Wind Farm alongside Montco Offshore liftboats. Deepwater Wind photo

Off the New Jersey coast, the bright red hull of the Fugro Enterprise has become a familiar sight to commercial fishermen who pull shellfish dredges and tend gillnets.

Plodding along at around 4 knots, the 170’x40’x11′ survey vessel is making detailed geotechnical surveys for the Ocean Wind energy project, planned by Ørsted to accommodate towering wind turbines that would supply New Jersey with its first 1,100 megawatts of renewable energy generated by offshore wind.

The CTV Atlantic Pioneer has serviced the Block Island Wind Farm since spring 2016. Blount Boats photo

To New Jersey’s renewable power advocates and Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, the work is a welcome sight. It’s the first step toward building what they hope will be 3,500 MW of offshore power by 2030.

For people in the state’s seafood industry — including the long-established and profitable scallop and surf clam fleets — the big red boat portends a new struggle to stay in business.

“The impact to New Jersey will be devastating if the commercial fishing industry is displaced at all,” warned Brick Wenzel, a captain who fishes out of Point Pleasant Beach, N.J., as state utility regulators prepared measure so Ørsted and other companies could bid for power contracts.

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and Coast Guard have put wind developers on notice that they will need to plan for wide, safe vessel traffic lanes through future turbine arrays.

But that’s just one challenge ahead for an industry, born in the waters of northern Europe that now looks to develop potentially the richest wind energy market in the world.

In U.S. waters, offshore wind developers face hurdles of finding enough heavy-lift construction vessels, and even physical space in U.S. ports to accommodate the coming generation of giant wind turbines.

LOTS OF WIND, RIGHT SPOT

The East Coast between southern New England and the Carolinas is so attractive for offshore energy development because it has consistent year-round wind close to “load centers” — Boston, New York and other cities of the eastern megapolis, said James Bennett, who heads BOEM’s renewable energy program.

The pioneer was Deepwater Wind (now part of Ørsted) with its five-turbine, 30-MW Block Island Wind Farm of Rhode Island that went online in 2016. The same year Equinor (then known as Statoil) won a 79,350-acre lease for its Empire Wind project, tucked between shipping lanes into New York Harbor.

Two years later companies bid almost double what Equinor spent per acre to secure three more leases south of Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., for $135 million each in December 2018.

“I think what you’ll see with these leases in place is tremendous acceleration down to Virginia,” said Bennett.

An offshore wind turbine under construction. Siemens photo

With that market signal, U.S. shipbuilders and other would-be suppliers have been stepping up with their offerings. Two major trade shows, the International Partnering Forum 2019 presented by the Business Network for Offshore Wind in New York City in April, and the U.S. Offshore Wind conference in Boston in June, both counted packed houses with around 1,400 attendees each.

In May Ørsted and partner WindServe Marine LLC, an affiliate of New York-based Reinauer Group, announced plans to build a pair of crew transfer vessels (CTVs). The BMT Group-designed catamarans will be the second and third U.S.-flag CTVs since Blount Boats, Warren, R.I., built the CTV Atlantic Pioneer to service the Block Island turbines.

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New York closes 427 shellfishing acres; Reopens 31 Acres

From the NY State Department of Environmental Conservation

In response to the annual review of multiple data sources, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) today announced new regulations that will close approximately 427 acres across several shellfishing areas in Nassau and Suffolk counties. The affected areas in six Long Island towns are now closed during part or all of the year. Areas being closed, or those having seasonally closed periods extended, were found to have elevated levels of fecal coliform bacteria that do not meet New York State’s bacteriological standards for certified (open) shellfish harvesting areas. DEC acted to close the areas to protect the health of shellfish consumers.

Areas affected by new or extended closures are:

105 acres in Long Island Sound (towns of Brookhaven and Riverhead) will be closed year-round;
132 acres in West Harbor, Fishers Island (town of Southold), will have the existing seasonal closure extended by 14 days;
One acre in Gardiners Bay (town of Southold) will be closed seasonally from May 1 through October 31;
23 acres in Great Peconic Bay (town of Southold) will be closed year-round;
80 acres in Lake Montauk (town of East Hampton) will have the existing seasonal closure extended by 60 days;
Eight acres in Moriches Bay (town of Southampton), closed seasonally, from May 1 through October 31;
Two acres in Greenport Harbor, Shelter Island Sound North (town of Southold), will be closed year-round;
21 acres in Little Northwest Creek, Sag Harbor, (town of East Hampton) will be closed year-round;
10 acres in Shinnecock Bay (town of Southampton) will be closed year-round; and
257 acres in Smithtown Bay (towns of Smithtown and Huntington) will be closed year-round.

In addition, DEC has made the determination to reopen approximately 31 acres in three embayments in Suffolk County. The affected areas, in two towns, will be reopened to shellfishing during all or part of the year or have existing seasonal openings extended by several weeks. The areas being reopened, or having seasonally open periods extended, were found to meet the stringent standards for certified areas. DEC has reopened these areas to provide additional shellfishing opportunities for commercial and recreational harvesters. Nearly one million acres of certified harvest areas around Long Island are available for taking shellfish (clams, oysters, mussels, and scallops) for human consumption.

Areas affected by the new openings are:

Seven previously closed acres in Bellport Bay (town of Brookhaven) will be opened year-round;
24 acres in Pirates Cove, Fishers Island (town of Southold), will be seasonally open from October 1 through April 30, annually; and
Five acres in Mill Creek, a tributary of Shelter Island Sound North (town of Southold), will have its seasonally open period extended by 45 days.

Additional technical amendments to DEC regulations include clarifying and updating landmarks and other boundaries for delineating shellfish closure lines. DEC continues to monitor water quality throughout New York’s marine district as part of its participation in the National Shellfish Sanitation Program. DEC will make changes to the certification of shellfish lands as water quality conditions warrant.

In addition, DEC is mailing a Notice to Shellfish Harvesters to individuals that hold a 2019 shellfish diggers permit and reside in the towns in which the affected areas are located. These notices provide information about the changes and maps showing new closure lines. Detailed descriptions of the new landmarks and boundaries for the newly closed and reopened areas, including the new dates of the seasonal closures, are available from DEC by calling 631-444-0492.

The regulations adopting the changes announced today were effective immediately on July 12, and are expected to be published in the July 31, 2019, edition of the New York State Register.

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Opinion: Burning food waste in N.J. still stinks, even when it’s given another name

While the trash incineration industry is seizing this moment to try and sell municipalities their rebranded forms of yesterday’s technologies, there is an opportunity to embrace a better approach, Mandy Gunasekara says.

By Mandy Gunasekara, Star-Ledger guest columnist

The New Jersey legislature recently passed a food-waste recycling bill designed to better align the state’s waste-management processes with today’s understandings and societal expectations.

Legislators no doubt had the best of intentions while crafting this bill – which is on its way to the governor for signature into law – but it has a glaring loophole that stands to undermine its entire purpose. A last-minute amendment added trash incinerators to the list of approved recycling facilities. If burning New Jersey’s food waste strikes you as a major step backward in local waste management and counter to the basic meaning of recycling, then you are on the right track.

Reading through the text of the amendment it would be hard to find this provision given incinerators are rarely mentioned by their old, honest name, but instead have a new, more enlightened one – “resource recovery facilities.” While effective PR campaigns and lobbying efforts have changed the look and feel of these trash burning facilities on paper, little has changed in terms of the technology.

false — Throwing food away — or just burning it — counts as recycling in bill awaiting Murphy’s approval

A last-minute change to a bill originally meant to expand composting in the Garden State could instead send food waste to landfills and incinerators.

Some facilities have added heat capturing capabilities in an effort to produce energy. The PR brigade refers to these as “waste-to-energy,” which sounds great, but this has proved both inefficient and extremely costly in practice. It actually costs $8.33 per megawatt-hour to make energy out of waste incineration. For comparison, pulverized coal only costs $4.25 per megawatt-hour; nuclear energy costs $2.04.

From an environmental perspective, burning trash is equally problematic. Air pollutants are an inevitable biproduct of the process, but there is a more recent concern that incinerators are also releasing Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances more commonly referred to as PFAS. These chemicals have been the subject of growing public concern, which prompted EPA to issue an action plan to address it. In the meantime, trash incinerators do not have the same level of pollution control capabilities for PFAS as they do other air pollutants.

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Petition opposes 200-acre sports complex along Lake Prospertown in the NJ Pinelands

Prospertown Lake in Jackson Township, New Jersey.

By Shore News Network

JACKSON-The proposed 200-acre sports complex that once boasted a new stadium for Governor Phil Murphy’s Sky Blue FC Women’s soccer team has residents of Jackson Township upset over the mass clearing of land along protected waterways along the banks of Prospertown Lake.

Marc Covitz, a nearby resident of Millstone is leading the charge and has collected over 6,000 names on a petition to stop the project before it starts.

“Trophy Park is a massive sports complex planned to be built on 200 acres of Great Adventure/Six Flags property in the Pinelands forest of Jackson Township on the southern shore of Prospertown Lake, and would extend west to Hawkin Road,” Covitz said. “The plans call for clear-cutting thousands of trees in order to construct a 6,000 seat soccer stadium, two 98-room hotels, a dormitory and temporary housing for 2,000 players per week, 23 full-size athletic fields, a 400,000 sq ft indoor sports facility, an 800-seat dining hall and on-site restaurants and concessions.”

Apparently, Governor Murphy agreed and he pulled his women’s soccer club from the project, but state officials and authorities are still giving the project their full support.

“We believe the development will pose detrimental effects to the quality of life for residents in the surrounding towns due to extreme traffic congestion and gridlock and will cause severe effects to Prospertown Lake, the Pinelands and the numerous threatened and endangered species that inhabit the forest,” Covitz added.

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