Sea Girt residents oppose plans to bring onshore wind energy to the city

SEA GIRT, NJ — So far, plans for two major wind farms that would have been built off the coast of New Jersey have fallen through: Danish wind energy developer Orsted pulled out last October, and in January Equinor and British Petroleum (BP) ended plans for Empire Wind 2, which would have claimed 80,000 acres of ocean between Sandy Hook and Long Branch, 30 kilometers away.

The two companies cited “inflation, interest rates and supply chain disruptions” as reasons for cancelling the project. Equinor also said there were “changes in economic circumstances across the industry.”

But another wind farm is still running at full speed: Atlantic Shores South, consisting of two wind farms 14 km off Atlantic City.

Atlantic Shores South will consist of 195 wind turbines, each over 900 feet tall. (That's almost as tall as the Empire State Building.) If all goes according to plan, the wind farm is expected to generate up to 2,800 megawatts of electricity, enough to power nearly a million homes.

And the transmission cables that will carry the energy generated by Atlantic Shores are scheduled to land in Monmouth County:

If built, offshore wind power will first come ashore at Sea Girt, and underground cables will continue through Manasquan, Wall and Howell.

On Monday evening, more than 500 people attended a virtual town hall meeting, mostly against the transmission cables. The meeting was organized by Stop the High-Risk Power Cables, a group of Monmouth County residents opposed to the cables.

“The transmission cables, which will be laid beneath the township's streets, will carry 6,400 megawatts of power – ten times the electrical output of the recently closed Oyster Creek Nuclear Power Plant,” the group wrote on its website here. “Based on our research, no project of this magnitude has ever been tested and found safe anywhere in the world.”

The high-voltage cables will run within 30 to 45 feet of homes and recreational facilities, past three schools and under the Coast to Capital Bike Trail, residents say.

They say not enough people in the Sea Girt region know about this proposal.

Monday night's meeting included Congressman Chris Smith (R-Manchester), who has been a vocal advocate for preventing wind farms off the New Jersey coast. Also in attendance were Manasquan Mayor Michael Mangan, Sea Girt Mayor Donald Fetzer, Monmouth/Ocean County Representative Paul Kanitra; Mike Dean of Save the East Coast; Cindy Zipf of Clean Ocean Action; and Keith Moore of Defend Brigantine Beach.

“We know that without a change in plans, the communities of Sea Girt, Wall, Howell and Manasquan – which are forced to lay the huge cables coming from the wind turbines – will be the next victims,” ​​Smith said. “The work required for these projects – which could take years and will inevitably require ongoing maintenance – will turn residential areas into dangerous construction sites indefinitely,” said Smith, who feared that residential streets would have to be torn up to create trenches for the power lines.

“We can't find an example anywhere in the world of this much power being dumped on a beach and flowing just 45 to 60 feet from homes, schools and recreational areas,” said Kimberly Paterson, one of the founding members of StopTheHighRiskPowerCables.org. “The documents from regulators and developers acknowledge that there is a risk, but they are moving forward anyway. Residents should not be expected to serve as guinea pigs for New Jersey's high-risk experiment.”

Construction of the land infrastructure in Monmouth County is scheduled to begin in 2025, with selection of a contractor expected this September.