WELLFLEET — Plans for permitting the construction of wind farms in the Gulf of Maine have been in the works at the U.S. Dept. of the Interior since at least 2021. But for many municipal leaders on Cape Cod, those plans came into view only on April 30, after the department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announced the proposed auction of eight potential lease areas — including one about 23 miles off the back shore of the Outer Cape.
The bureau then offered a period for public comments on the proposal running from May 1 to July 1. That was not enough time, said a letter from the Cape and Islands Municipal Leaders Association (CIMLA). The letter, sent to the bureau as a public comment on June 26 asked for an extension of the comment period from July 1 to July 22.
In the days following the association’s letter, the Wellfleet and Orleans select boards both submitted their own comments requesting similar extensions, and Truro Town Manager Darrin Tangeman requested a 90-day extension on behalf of that town.
Besides its request for an extension of the comment period, the municipal leaders association letter asked BOEM to host public meetings on the Outer Cape and included 26 questions or concerns grouped into 13 points that they want addressed. The letter was drafted by Wellfleet Select Board member Ryan Curley, Orleans Select Board vice chair Kevin Galligan, and Chatham Select Board clerk Shareen Davis and signed by CIMLA President Douglas Brown.
The comment period was not extended. BOEM announced on July 11, however, that it would hold a public information session in Eastham on the proposed sale notice. That session was set to be held at the Four Points Sheraton on July 17 — one day after this newspaper’s deadline.
Galligan said the group’s goal was to raise questions and introduce topics for future debate. “We’re going to have many bites at this apple,” he said.
The letter calls on BOEM to provide further information, such as details on substations, decommissioning funds, and simulations of the view of the wind farm at night.
Galligan and Davis both said one concern was responsibility in case of a catastrophic failure. “What if there is a major event?” Galligan asked. “How are we, as little communities on the Cape, going to be protected?”
Zachary Jylkka, a renewable energy program specialist at BOEM, told the Independent that companies that lease wind energy areas would have to cover the costs of cleanup themselves in the event of equipment failure. “That responsibility would not fall to the town or state,” he said.
The CIMLA letter also took up energy infrastructure policies that Galligan said he had pushed for: it suggested a streamlined permitting scheme; a stipulation that wind companies share cables in order to minimize seafloor effects; and a determination on whether ratepayers or energy companies will be obliged to pay for related grid upgrades.
Galligan said that developers do sometimes incur grid upgrade costs without passing them on to ratepayers. He cited the development of a solar array at the Orleans Transfer Station as one example, where the developer paid for the installation of cables to connect that array to the grid. “These guys proposed their projects,” he said. “They should carry all of the necessary costs to interconnect with the grid.”
Davis, for her part, said that she had contributed to questions about potential effects on fisheries. She wanted to know how small-scale fisheries might be affected, whether turbines might pose a danger to fishermen, and how mitigation funding would be distributed.
“I’m hoping to see that we have recognition of impact, that if there is mitigation it’s fair and equitable,” she said.
A pair of questions cited the risk of whale entanglement in the chains that anchor the floating turbines to the seabed and the cables running between turbines. But Daniel Palacios, director of the Right Whale Ecology Program at the Center for Coastal Studies, said the chains are so large that they are not likely to pose an entanglement risk to whales; the chains used on the Hywind Scotland floating wind farm, for instance, weigh 400 tons each. As for other cables, Palacios said he would want to wait for more precise schematics before commenting.
Brown said he was worried about the effect of wind energy development on ocean water stratification. The CIMLA letter says that introducing offshore wind turbines might cause mixing of the ocean’s cold and warm layers to occur, which the letter says might change the Gulf of Maine “irreversibly.”
Ryan Curley told the Independent he had been the person to include the mixing of layers issue in the letter, but he would not agree to a phone interview with the Independent.
Mark Borrelli, coastal geologist and director of the seafloor mapping program at the Center for Coastal Studies, said that the idea that offshore wind development will affect the entire Gulf of Maine is very unlikely. He added that, while there will surely be changes in the water column immediately around each individual turbine, “the Gulf of Maine is huge. I think the impacts would be very localized,” he said. Borrelli also said that “securing something on the bottom and having something floating on the surface is nothing new.”
In an email, Curley cited two papers as evidence for his concern. One covered a North Sea-based study led by Larissa Schultze from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon Institute for Coastal Research in Hanover, Germany, which found that mixing increased by around 10 percent in the immediate vicinity of turbines. The study found, however, that mixing dissipates by about 300 meters from the turbine, though the findings vary depending on how far apart the turbines are. The other paper, by professor of fluid mechanics Robert Dorrell from the University of Hull in England, was a general call for more research to be done.
Neither of the studies supports Curley’s contention that the entire Gulf of Maine could be irreversibly damaged by wind turbines.
Galligan said the goal of the letter was to ensure the Outer Cape had a seat at the table in wind energy development but not to be obstructionist: “We share the obligation to responsibly transition to clean energy,” he said. “If I talk to constituents in Orleans, especially the young people, they want this to happen.”
