MassDEP Hides Ocean Wind Turbine Conference Call

The State of Massachusetts issued a press release on August 1, 2019. That press release stated residents could listen in on a conference call between Vineyard Wind, Edgartown Conservation Commission and Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection on July 31, 2019.

THE DAY AFTER THE CALL - No one gets it ?

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Edgartown to defend rejection of Vineyard Wind cabling

https://www.southcoasttoday.com/news/20190801/edgartown-to-defend-rejection-of-vineyard-wind-cabling

By Michael P. Norton / State House News Service

Posted Aug 1, 2019 at 4:00 PM

As the $2.8 billion Vineyard Wind project fights for a key federal approval, the Baker administration, which is openly pushing the offshore wind farm, plans to swiftly decide on the developers’ appeal of an important permit denial by the Edgartown Conservation Commission.

According to the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), Vineyard Wind’s appeal was filed last Tuesday and was assigned to environmental analyst Daniel Gilmore in the agency’s Lakeville office. Gilmore will review the appeal and make a decision “as soon as possible,” according to DEP spokesman Ed Coletta. The agency has 70 days to decide the appeal.
There will be no public hearing as part of the appeal process. Instead, Gilmore will bring the parties together on a conference call Wednesday to ask questions and request additional information or documents and then decide on a superseding order of conditions, Coletta said.
The Baker administration, which oversees the DEP, worked with utility companies to choose Vineyard Wind, which administration officials are touting as potentially the nation’s first commercial-scale offshore wind project.

Baker met with Interior Secretary David Bernhardt in Washington D.C. Monday and said afterwards he was hoping to come up with a “cure plan” to address separate federal obstacles standing in the way of the project because “we really want this project to happen.” Vineyard Wind has said the project could be in jeopardy if it does not receive a final environmental sign-off from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, by the end of August.

Jane Varkonda, the conservation agent in Edgartown, said a July 31 conference call is scheduled and a DEP spokesman confirmed the call is set for 1 p.m. Wetland appeals normally lead to a site visit, but since the site in this case is in the ocean officials have opted to hear the appeal through a conference call.

The Vineyard Wind project calls for 84 wind turbines to be erected in waters between 120- and 160-feet deep about 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard. The Edgartown Conservation Commission’s concerns center on some of the cables associated with the project.

The commission on June 27 voted to issue an order of conditions prohibiting the installation of two submarine cables. It found that Vineyard Wind failed to submit sufficient information regarding the “permanent conversion” of marine fisheries habitat and land containing shellfish, and concluded that the area targeted for cables is “significant to storm damage prevention, flood control, and protection of wildlife habitat.”

In addition to negative impacts on marine life, the commission predicted the planned cables will become exposed, questioning Vineyard Wind’s claims about burying the cables in a “stable seabed” and pointing to complications for installation and maintenance presented by the high-energy nature of Muskeget Channel.

After their denial of the project’s application, the commission members announced that they had reached a “very difficult decision,” saying they were not swayed by project officials and found the project “unacceptable to the health of the environment of Muskeget Channel.”

With political headwinds seemingly working against them, commission officials were not available Tuesday and they appear to be on the verge of a David-versus-Goliath-like encounter.
Vineyard Wind, in its appeal, said the commission’s denial order “does not fairly reflect the comprehensive information” provided by project officials.

“Vineyard Wind has worked closely with its host communities, including Edgartown and other towns on Martha’s Vineyard,” Adam Kahn of Foley Hoag wrote in the company’s appeal letter. “It regrets the need to appeal the Denial Order, but Vineyard Wind cannot follow through on its many commitments to the Vineyard and to the Commonwealth if the Project is not allowed to proceed.”
Project officials have developed “groundbreaking protections” for North Atlantic right whales, Kahn wrote, and the project has received determinations from the Massachusetts Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program that it “would not cause a ‘take’ of rare, threatened, or endangered species in Edgartown waters or elsewhere.” The project has no impact on storm damage prevention or flood control, he added.

Anyone interested in listening in on Wednesday’s conference call may dial 617-292-5890 and then use the bridge number 99911.