N.J. Offshore Wind: A high-stakes game of NIMBY, where backyards include a $6M beachfront palace

(Editor’s Note: This is the second in an occasional series by Bill Duhart on the future of wind power and what it means for South Jersey and the region.)

The temperature had just drifted above 80 degrees on a sunny Friday in mid-October. A path bordered by a corral fence traveled up and over a grassy dune and on to a pristine beach, revealing what appeared to be an infinite horizon.

This is Ocean City, a Jersey Shore beach resort town founded as a Christian retreat for the faithful. Some of that puritan ethic still exists. The sale of alcohol is forbidden, as is BYOB in restaurants or on beaches.

The boozy bacchanal of many Shore towns is frowned upon here, as is anything else locals perceive as an affront to their bucolic existence.

Now the 11,000 year-round residents of the city and vacation home owners — including a $6 million beachfront palace here on 35th Street — are bracing for an intrusion few could have imagined. A large-scale construction project from the beachfront, which will snake all the way across town to a decommissioned former coal power plant 7 miles away, is coming, and there seems to be little they can do about it. And that infinite horizon may be going bye-bye.

“I have listened to an overwhelming number of citizens who have expressed concerns about the project and I have done my own due diligence,” Ocean City Mayor Jay Gillian said in a recent statement. “There is no way it can be constructed without making a direct impact on Ocean City. I understand that federal and state decision makers have the power to approve this project without Ocean City’s consent, but I intend to do everything in my power to advocate for Ocean City’s best interests.”

The City Council is trying to do its part. Over the summer, it unanimously approved a measure to make it more difficult for the looming offshore wind energy development project. The state-approved Ocean Wind I project — a landmark project for the Danish wind giant Ørsted — will erect 97 massive wind turbines 15 miles off the coast and snake the power cables under the beach and streets of Ocean City inland to the old B.L. England Generating Station in Upper Township.

Meanwhile, back on the beach, everyone seemed to have an opinion.

“I believe in it, I just don’t want it in my backyard,” said Pete, a software engineer who was working remotely and only wanted to give his first name. “I know that’s pathetic, but it’s the truth. We’ve got to do something, but not in my backyard.”

Pete, 48, said he’s been coming to the 35th Street beach since he was 10 years old. He bought a home 10 years ago in the Marmora section of Upper Township, just over the bridge from Ocean City, but said he still enjoys coming here, even on a weekday.

A short distance away, Heather Thomas sat on a blanket with her two young sons playing in the sand nearby.

“I’ve been part of a group to stop the project,” said Thomas, a self-employed photographer who lives a block away on 34th Street, near Central Avenue. “I feel like it should be somewhere else. Why here in South Jersey? It should be up in North Jersey, in an area where it’s not close to homes.”

Thomas said she thinks the project can still be stopped, even though state legislation includes a provision to override local land-use boards to advance the project.

Gov. Phil Murphy has pledged to bring 7,500 offshore wind megawatts online by 2035. It is a critical part of his energy master plan, which calls for the state to get 50% of its power from renewables by 2030, and 100% by 2050. The effort is meant to wean the state off fossil fuels, and slash New Jersey’s contributions to climate change.

Ocean Wind I is the first of three wind farms approved by the state, which will lead the nation in offshore wind development when it is operational in 2024.

Ørsted won approval from the state to build the wind farm, in part, by promising to also manufacture some or all of the component parts for the hulking, 900-foot structures in New Jersey, in Paulsboro — a smoky, once smelly, refinery town on the Delaware River waterfront, just about as far west from Ocean City as you can get without leaving the state. State legislators in and near Paulsboro wrote and won approval of a measure that would bypass Ocean City’s land-use boards to fast track Ocean Wind I if delays arise on the 2024 timeline to have the turbines start coursing electricity into the state grid.

Locals like Thomas, and waves of tourists who drive the local economy, have expressed concerns about a marred horizon from the enormous structures, even though officials say they will be barely visible from 15 miles off the coast, even on the clearest days.

Two other possible landfall options are 5th or 13th streets, according to a construction and operation plan Ørsted filed with the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. BOEM will make the final determination on the route after a slew of other benchmarks are cleared, including an environmental impact study due next year.

Either of the other locations would require excavation of 29 or 21 blocks of roadway, respectively, along West Street to get to 34th Street and on to Roosevelt Boulevard to get to the power plant.

Ørsted officials say they want to work with local officials to ease inconveniences and promise to do the work outside of the prime tourist season.

“We won’t proceed until New Jersey grants approval,” Marc Reimer, Ørsted’s Ocean Wind I development director, told NJ Advance Media. “No grants or permits will be issued until local issues are satisfied and we comply with New Jersey rules and regulations. We’re still in the planning phase working with the federal government Department of Environmental Protection and with stakeholders. Nothing is settled.”

Gillian said Ørsted is planning to “provide answers to all of the public’s questions” at an open house, 10 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 6, at the Ocean City Music Pier.

But Paul and Mary Ellen Noss, retired educators from Pennsylvania who own a house near 35th Street they rent out in the summer, said their minds are already made up about the project.

“You’ve got to do away with fossil fuels if you want some results,” Paul Noss said, just before he set up his chairs on the beach. “Fossil fuels are killing the environment. Eventually our house is going to be beachfront.”

Reimer agreed.

“Energy can really no longer be carbon based,” he said. “If we want to continue going to the beach, these projects need to be part of the solution.”

Background Information previously reported by NJ.com is included in this report.

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Bill Duhart may be reached at bduhart@njadvancemedia.com.