Attention Important Announcement

Dear Offshore Renewable Energy Stakeholder:
This announcement provides updated information on the Department of Interior's Minerals Management Service (MMS) June regional stakeholder workshops concerning the newly published regulatory framework for renewable energy activities on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). Final locations have been established in all cities and are listed below.

On April 29, 2009, the U.S. Department of the Interior issued the final regulatory framework on Renewable Energy and Alternate Uses of Existing Facilities on the OCS. The workshops will allow stakeholders to learn more about the regulatory framework for renewable energy activities on the OCS. In particular, attendees will learn about the MMS leasing process. Time will be provided for discussion and questions and answers. Leases issued under the new regulatory framework will authorize activities related to renewable energy development, such as commercial development of offshore wind, wave, or ocean current, or non-commercial activities related to assessing renewable energy potential in an area.  Staff from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) will be available at locations indicated below to discuss the Commission's role in the issuance of licenses for wave or ocean current projects on the OCS.

Workshops will be held in the following locations:
June 4: Washington, DC
South Interior Building
1951 Constitution Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20245
Time: 2:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
FERC staff will attend this meeting.

June 8: Norfolk, VA
Hampton Roads Ballroom VII
Marriott Norfolk Waterside
235 East Main Street
Norfolk, VA 23510
Time: 2:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

June 9: Boston, MA
Suffolk Room (Third Floor)
Marriott Copley Place
110 Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA 02116
Time: 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. (noon)

June 9: New Orleans, LA
Conference Room 111
1201 Elmwood Park Blvd.
New Orleans, LA 70123Time:  9:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.

June 10: New York, NY
Ziegfeld Room
New York Marriott Marquis
1535 Broadway
New York, NY 10036
Time: 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. (noon)

June 10: Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Dolphin Ballroom
Hilton Garden Inn Ft. Lauderdale/Hollywood Airport
180 SW 18th Ave.
Dania Beach, FL 33004
Time:  1:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.
FERC staff will attend this meeting.

June 11: Monmouth, NJ
Wilson Auditorium
Monmouth University
400 Cedar Avenue
West Long Branch, NJ 07764
Time: 2:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

June 11: Savannah, GA
Oglethorpe A&B
Marriott Savannah Riverfront
100 General McIntosh Boulevard
Savannah, GA 31401
Time:  1:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.

June 15: Rockport, ME
(at EnergyOcean conference -this workshop is open to the public. Workshop attendees are not required to register for the EnergyOcean conference)See: http://www.energyocean.com/2009/
Time: 3:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.
FERC staff will attend this meeting.

June 24: Seattle, WA
Room 1, Level 4
Seattle Public Library
1000 Fourth Avenue
Seattle, WA 98104
Time: 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. (noon)
FERC staff will attend this meeting.

June 25: Portland, OR
Ross Island Room
Doubletree Hotel
1000 N.E. Multnomah
Portland, OR 97232
Time: 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. (noon)
FERC staff will attend this meeting.

June 26: San Francisco, CA
Port Commission Hearing Room
Ferry Building
San Francisco, CA 94111
Time: 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. (noon)
FERC staff will attend this meeting.

Additional information about the new regulatory framework for offshore renewable energy is available at www.mms.gov/offshore/renewableenergy. You will find a link to the final regulatory framework on this site.

If you have any questions about the workshops, please reply to this email or call Ecosystem Management & Associates (EM&A), the contracted coordinator and facilitator for the workshops, at 410-394- 2929. The information in this email is posted on the MMS website (see link above). We look forward to seeing you in June. 

Thank you!

Sincerely,
Maureen A. Bornholdt
Program Manager
Office of Offshore Alternative Energy Programs     
Minerals Management Service
U.S. Department of the Interior

Newsday Article

LIPA chief kills wind farm project

BY MARK HARRINGTON
6:00 PM EDT, August 22, 2007

Long Island Power Authority Chairman Kevin Law Wednesday said he will "terminate" a controversial project to install 40 wind turbines off the coast of Jones Beach, dealing a fatal blow to a plan alternately portrayed as an environmental necessity and an economic boondoggle.

The decision follows Law's review of a recently completed independent report on the economics of the $700 million project that he said showed its costs to be "significantly" higher than traditional forms of energy generation or even a new energy-efficient plant. Legislators and citizens groups have criticized the plan since it was proposed in 2003, but a small cadre of environmental groups, some with financial ties to LIPA, had been among its most ardent supporters. Recently, even some of those proponents have expressed surprise at the soaring cost of the project.

Law emphasized that the decision, which he will discuss with trustees at a Sept. 22 LIPA board meeting, doesn't mean an end to wind power proposals for Long Island. He will continue to pursue that source of alternative energy, he said, including possibly land-based windmills, at other locations. The Jones Beach location, he said, is off the table.

"While I'm a supporter of renewable energy, I've decided this project doesn't make any economic sense, and I will recommend to LIPA trustees that we terminate it," Law said in an interview with Newsday.

He said he'll work with local wind-energy advocates, including Gordian Raacke of Renewable Energy Long Island and Neal Lewis of the Neighborhood Network, to research possible wind proposals that "make economic sense." Law said he has already met with the groups to inform them of his plan.

Lewis Wednesday said he looks forward to going back to the drawing board on a wind-energy plan, agreeing the economics should have been discussed long ago.

"I think a number of things went wrong with the whole process," he said. "We indicated years ago that cost issues should have been brought out in a more forthright way."

Environmental activist Richard Schary, who has long criticized the deal's unknown finances, said his concern had always been that the project "was not about the environment."

Rather, he said, "it was about the money."

Other long-time critics hailed Law's decision.

"This is a victory for common sense," said Babylon Supervisor Steve Bellone, who Wednesday announced an effort to block placement of a planned transmission cable from the farm through beaches in his district. "It's a victory for the ratepayers of Long Island who ultimately would have borne the overwhelming burden of this costly, symbol project that ultimately would have delivered very little energy," Bellone said.

When LIPA first announced the plan, it estimated the cost to be between $150 million and $200 million. But LIPA did not disclose actual costs until Newsday filed a Freedom of Information Law request last year. Initially, LIPA denied the request, but on appeal it provided limited and outdated information disclosing that from FPL Energy's winning bid for the project in 2003 was $356 million. Newsday later reported that the cost had ballooned to $650 million by last October. LIPA, at Law's request this summer, disclosed the December 2006 cost to be just shy of $700 million.

In an April 2002 assessment, LIPA consultant AWS Scientific estimated energy from the wind farm would cost between 6 and 9 cents per kilowatt hour, then well above the 4.5-cent average LIPA paid. At the time, LIPA said advances in wind-power technology were continuously lowering the cost, so that electricity from the wind farm would be competitive with electricity from traditional sources.

But analysis since then by Dowling College's Long Island Economic and Social Policy Institute showed the cost would be more than six times that of standard power in the latter years of the contract.

Babylon supervisor Bellone by then had been banging the cost drum for more than a year, in August of 2006 calling the developer "the Halliburton of Wind Power."

A spokesman for FPL Energy declined to comment, noting, "We have not heard from LIPA relative to their intentions on the offshore project."

Copyright © 2007, Newsday Inc.

Newsday Feature Editorial

Illustration by Jack Sherman Newsday

Newsday Feature Editorial April 8, 2007,
"The Answer, My Friend is Not Blowin' in the Wind"
please read article .:

ACTION ALERT

An industrial park of wind generators and electrical platforms off shore between Jones Beach and Robert Moses State Parks is being forced upon all Long Islanders. Cost figures in the 600 to 800 million dollar range are being forecast, with out overruns or material/labor cost increases being considered.

Remember that the cost for the Shoreham Power Plant went to 6 billion dollars, 85 times the original estimate before being eventually scrapped. Repowering our existing innefficient and poluting L.I. power plants is the only sensible alternative for this huge monetary expenditure.

Dr. Matthew C Cordero, PH D. and Director of the Center for Management Analysis L.I.U./C.W. Post reported that through repowering:

a.) Generating capacity will grow by 4700/MW. Using LIPA's estimate that it will require 100/MW of new capacity per year, in excess of 40 year's needs will be satisfied.

b.) The cost of repowering is estimated to be about $700-900/KW versus $2000/KW for alternative forms of generation, including wind.

c.) Total emmissions of CO2 will decline by millions of tons and reductions of NOx, SO2, and particulates will exceed 80% in many cases.

We also ask you to support our fight with a donation to provide assistance in helping us keep Long Islanders informed and to help us to be ready for potential legal challenges to this project.

Thank you

News

Repower Long Island
Mark Harrington in Newsday March 9, 2007 "Demands for Keyspan Cleanup", LI plants viewed as health hazard by group that wants sale of utility tied to replacing old equipment. please read article .:

BBC NEWS EAGLE AND RAPTOR KILLS
BBC NEWS "Wind Farm turbine blades are killing a key population of Europe's largest bird of prey, UK wildlife campaigners warn.
please read article .:

Newsday

Newsday Feature Editorial April 8, 2007,
"The Answer, My Friend is Not Blowin' in the Wind" please read article .:

Mark Harrington's investigative report on the Long Island Offshore Wind Farm ( Week of 10/30/06 to 11/02/06).

" A Powerful Price. Records show LIPA customers would be hard hit by higher energy cost if plans to build a wind farm off the South Shore get the go ahead." please read article .:

"High profile campaign for planting turbines wasn't just blowing in the wind" please read article .:

"Report Details Turbines Risk. Federal department says wind farms could interfere with radar systems that monitor missels, and air traffic."
please read article .:

"LIPA record reveal some wind farm costs." please read article .:

Long Island Business News

L.I. Business News article: "Serious Blow for Proposed Wind Park"
please read article .:

 
 

Town of Babylon

Press Release

For Immediate Release
Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Supervisor Bellone urges FPL to commit to a comprehensive
environmental review of proposed Wind Project
“FPL looks like the Halliburton of Wind Power”

(Lindenhurst, NY) Today Babylon Town Supervisor Steve Bellone accused Florida Light & Power (FPL) of attempting to evade a comprehensive environmental review of their proposed off-shore wind project based on documents submitted by FPL to the Minerals Management Service, the agency in charge of the environmental review process.  “This is a document that is worthy of Halliburton” said Babylon Town Supervisor Steve Bellone.  “If this project moves forward it will permanently industrialize our coastline and potentially cause far-reaching environmental consequences.   Yet, despite this, FPL is doing everything it can to avoid the kind of comprehensive analysis and regulation that this project demands.”

In its comments to MMS, FPL urges that site-specific environmental studies not be required, that they can self-regulate on environmental issues, that they alone collect wind data, yet not be obliged to share it, and that, as government is unqualified, “MMS step out of the issue of economic viability.”  FPL admonished MMS to not establish “regulations that impose additional costs,” while insisting that “third party monitoring is unnecessary.” 

In addition to this, MMS’ sister agency US Fish & Wildlife reported to the Army Corps of Engineers that the proper environmental studies have not been completed by FPL and they requested that the permit application be held in abeyance until such studies were completed by the applicant.  More than a year later nothing has been done to address those concerns. 

Regarding site-specific studies to analyze the wind project’s impact on bird populations, US Fish & Wildlife said this:

After initially committing to conducting studies, the applicant (FPL) decided in early 2005 to cancel radar surveys of the project site.  The decision was made after being informed of the much more complete data set being collected by radar equipment on the CapeWind offshore energy project.  It was conveyed to the applicants that the Cape Wind project aerial and boat surveys resulted in the observation of approximately 210 birds flying at turbine height while the radar surveys conducted for the same project resulted in the tabulation of over 127,697 targets within the proposed rotor swept zone.  This difference in data reflects the superior utility of radar equipment to determine avian abundance, location (including altitude), and direction of flight within the project airspace and potential impact zone.

For this project, the Service recommends that 3 years of preconstruction studies be completed using a combination of radar (horizontal and vertical), acoustic, direct field sampling and visual (boat, barge, and aircraft) observation.”

FPL actually cites the hazardous nature of operating in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) as a reason not to conduct site specific studies.  They stated, “Conducting field studies in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) can be hazardous and safety must be paramount.”  They gave no explanation as to why it would be safe to build windmills in the OCS if it is not safe to conduct studies in the OCS.

The Town of Babylon is calling on FPL to repudiate its statements to MMS and immediately commit to completing a truly comprehensive and rigorous environmental analysis that provides a real picture of the project’s environmental impact.  Supervisor Steve Bellone is also calling on local environmental groups to join him in putting pressure on FPL to conduct a full and fair environmental review. 

“The stakes are too high with this project to allow a company like FPL to skate through the environmental review process,” said Supervisor Steven Bellone.  “This comprehensive environmental review is necessary so that Long Island, as a region, can make an informed determination about whether this project should proceed or be rejected.”

Note: FPL is the company selected by the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) to build 40 windmills, each more than 440 feet tall, in front of Babylon’s ocean beaches, just off the south shore of Long Island.  

Documents provided:

• FPL’s proposal to Minerals Management Services
• US Fish and Wildlife’s comments on FPL’s proposed Wind Project

 Contact:

Senator Charles Schumer
145 Pinelawn Road #300
Melville, N.Y. 11747
Phone 1-631-753-0978
Fax   1-631-753-0977

Senator Hillary Clinton
155 Pinelawn Road
Suite 250 North
Melville, N.Y. 11747
Phone 1-631-349-2825
Fax   1-631-249-2847

Congressman Peter King
1003 Park Bvld.
Massapequa Park, N.Y. 11762
Phone 1-516-541-4225
Fax   1-516-541-6602

Congressman Steve Israel
150 Motor Parkway Suite 108
Hauppague, N.Y. 11788
Phone 1-631-951-2210
Fax   1-631-951-3308