Dan's Papers - June 29, 2007 - Winergy Has A Plan For The North Fork

On July 12, a public meeting for the Town of Southold will discuss a proposal by Winergy Power to construct a huge wind turbine 450 to 520 feet above the water line off of Plum Island near Orient Point. This project could provide enough electricity for 4000 North Fork homes and save this country from importing 68,000 barrels of crude oil from overseas. But what effect will it have on the aesthetic quality of the shoreline? The generators will be seen for 20 miles at sea.

Winergy Power already has the permits to farm fish and shellfish in the proposed site 3.8 miles from the tip of Gardiners Island, 7.8 miles from Hog Creek Point in Springs, and 13.7 miles from Montauk Harbor. The company plans on experimenting with preconstructed towers towed and set up in the area. The idea is that if this is successful, perhaps these towers can be put in deeper waters. Present tower systems can only go down about 70 ft when constructed and assembled on site. This new system will have the capacity to go as far down as 170 feet . The rotor blades will have a radius of about 207 ft and will rotate 13 to 17 revolutions per minute in optimal wind conditions. The exact type of turbines to be used has yet to be decided. Using a privately funded, 26 million dollar budget, Winergy is forging into unchartered waters for an alternative to conventional ways of making electricity now centering around fossil fuels. One local woman said, "Everyone wants something like this but not off their coast." However various government groups like the Army Corp of Engineers and the United States Coast Guard are doing studies. Winergy has picked out 11 other sites on the Atlantic coastline. The sites are in New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware and Massachusetts. The plan is to produce this electricity and have the local power suppliers buy it from them at mandated rates.

The Plum Island proposal is going through a review done by the United States Coast Guard, The State Department of Environmental Conservation, the National Marine Fisheries, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the State Department of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, the Army Corp of Engineers and the Town of Southold. The implications are huge in so many ways. Oil interest, power company interest, recreational boating interest, and of course the effect on the real estate of the area is in play. So far, it has been determined it has absolutely no effect on local fish and shellfish, according to Winenergy, that is using the 200-acre site presently for commercial fish farming.

In the end it comes down to whether or not projects like this can move forward without massive Federal Agency mandating. Private firms must swim against a very active upstream current against change. Systems once put in to protect the public are sometimes now used to protect the very few.

The people of Southold will get to have their individual and collective voices heard on July 10. The result may be a bold new step to develop and perfect a new technology or a way to stall the project until the money behind it dries up or runs out. One thing is for sure, Exxon Mobil, Shell Oil and other oil companies are not rooting for a new form of making electricity. This may be an idea whose time has come.