June 27, 2019 — Three wind energy development companies have asked the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to make the federally controlled sea floor off the South Fork available for wind farm leases.
The BOEM is currently considering whether to create new lease areas for wind farm development on the sea floor in several large sectors off the shores of Long Island and New Jersey available to would-be wind farm developers.
Last year, the agency put out a “call” to developers for nominations of possible new wind farm locations—effectively asking development companies to point to areas where they would be interested in putting wind farms. The call areas are regions of sea floor where conditions are suitable for the placement of turbines—bounded by depth contours, shipping lanes and legal boundaries that cleaved the space into four sectors.
One of the four sectors that BOEM is considering lies directly south of the entire South Fork. Called “Fairways North” in BOEM documents, the sector starts about 18 miles south of the South Fork and extends out to more than 30 miles from shore in some portions. It stretches from approximately south of Moriches Inlet east to approximately south of Montauk Point.