July 28, 2022 — Jersey Shore residents, environmentalists and business industry advocates remain divided over whether to speed ahead or spend more time reviewing the environmental impacts of a plan to build a 1,100-megawatt offshore wind farm south of Atlantic City.
Ocean Wind 1 ― a project by Denmark-based energy company Ørsted and Newark-based power company Public Service Enterprise Group, or PSEG — could power up to half a million homes in New Jersey once complete, according to Ørsted.
But some environmentalists and coastal residents worry the potential impacts of the wind turbine array could disrupt the migration of critically endangered whales, irreparably harm the local fishing industry and ruin tourists’ views from shore.
During a Tuesday hearing held virtually with the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which oversees approval of the Ocean Wind 1 project, Seaside Park Mayor John A. Peterson Jr. urged the federal agency to grant an extension to the public response and review period for the project’s environmental impact. Peterson also requested all offshore wind project approvals along New Jersey be delayed until a pilot project was erected and carefully studied.
Ocean Wind 1’s environmental impact statement “is a 1,400-page document and it is far too complex, far too vast an issue to take lightly,” the mayor said during the hearing’s public comment session. “This is an insufficient time period, I believe, for the public and for any and all other interested parties, including but not limited to municipalities, to comment on something of vast ramifications for the future.”
OEM’s consideration of Ocean Wind 1’s impacts failed to account for the cumulative impact of neighboring offshore wind projects along the Jersey Shore, Peterson said. Other projects ― a 2,200-megawatt project by Ørsted called Ocean Wind 2 to the south and two projects by Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind, LLC stretching as far north as Barnegat Light ― are in development or under consideration by federal and state agencies. Atlantic Shores has secured another ocean lease area from BOEM and New York east of Atlantic City.