NJ Legislators Propose Bill To Limit Local Say Over Wind Projects

ATLANTIC CITY, NJ — A bill advancing through the state Legislature could limit local governments’ ability to control infrastructure for offshore wind farms.

The bill (A-5894) would give the state Board of Public Utilities the authority to construct and maintain wires and associated infrastructure as long as they run under streets or other public property in any municipality.

The bill comes at a time when Ørsted's proposed offshore wind project has been gaining opposition from several coastal communities concerned about the cables running underneath New Jersey beaches, including Ocean City and Long Beach Island. Read more: Ocean City Residents Protest Ørsted's Offshore Wind Farm

Assemblyman John Burzichelli, a southern New Jersey Democrat who sponsored the bill, said it will be changed to take local concerns into account but did not specify specific amendments, the Associated Press reports.

“I can assure you, having been at ground zero of these discussions, we will allow nothing to happen that will disrupt Ocean City and the true gem that it is,” Burzichelli said at the state Assembly hearing during which the bill was advanced. “But the bottom line is transmission lines have to come. But they won’t run down the middle of your street.”

Ørsted announced in April that the Ocean Wind project would connect to the electric grids at the decommissioned Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in Lacey and the B.L. England Generating Station in Marmora.

Cables running from the wind farm will be buried below the seabed surface within federal and state waters at least 15 miles off the coast of Atlantic City. For the cables to reach the Oyster Creek plant, they would need to run under Island Beach State Park, into Barnegat Bay and come ashore directly at the Oyster Creek site in Forked River, or at either Bay Parkway or Lighthouse Drive in Waretown.

The cables would also connect the offshore turbines to a substation near the former B.L. England plant. These cables would come ashore at one of three potential locations in Ocean City, including 5th Street, 13th Street or 35th Street.

An Ørsted spokesperson told the Associated Press that the company supports the bill, which he said “establishes a mitigation process for qualified offshore wind projects approved by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities if talks break down at the local level. This is critical for keeping timelines and schedules not only for the developer, but for the supply chain and workforce dedicated to the project.”

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