US environmental green light for 7GW of offshore wind in New York Bight
Analysis of cumulative impacts aims to streamline permitting by reducing redundancies and guiding project construction and operations plan approvals
The US released its first environmental impact statement (EIS) for multiple projects totalling as much as 7GW of capacity in the record-setting New York Bight wind energy area (WEA).
The programmatic EIS (PEIS) is a broad overview of sector development in the 488,000-acre (1,975 sq. km) WEA located more than 30 miles (48 km) east of New Jersey’s coastline where six developers paid $4.34bn for project rights.
The purpose of the study is “to analyse potential environmental impacts of offshore wind activities in the six New York Bight lease areas,” according to federal regulator Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM).
BOEM director Elizabeth Klein said the agency “has collected input from Tribes, Federal and state government agencies, local communities, ocean users, and key stakeholders as part of our comprehensive environmental review.”
“We appreciate the feedback we have received, and we believe our regional approach will provide a solid baseline for future environmental reviews for any proposed offshore wind projects in the New York Bight,” she added.
Cumulative impacts
This is the first time BOEM has done an analysis across an entire WEA on the “focused, regional cumulative effects” of multiple projects, according to the document’s text.
Currently, projects aren’t required to analyse the cumulative environmental impacts of future projects in the federal permitting queue.
“When Vineyard Wind was first proposed there were not the plans on the books for as much offshore wind as it presently planned,” said Paul Weiland, partner in Nossaman LLP’s Environment & Land Use practice who regularly works on environmental issues.
BOEM stressed that the programmatic environmental review augments rather than replaces the EIS required for specific project construction and operations plans (COPs).
The PEIS “serves as a first-tier document that the second-tier project-specific environmental analyses of each COP may tier from or incorporate by reference,” BOEM said.
State demand
BOEM highlighted the close proximity and timelines of projects as New Jersey and New York ramp procurement of offshore wind as prompting the PEIS.
BOEM said the programmatic analysis will reduce redundancies and allow environmental reviews to be “focused on the project-specific impacts not considered in the PEIS or those impacts that warrant further consideration.”
Anne Reynolds, vice president of offshore wind at industry group American Clean Power Association, said: “This environmental review of the entire lease area is a vital step in establishing a more standardized and efficient permitting process.”
The PEIS “will help advance future construction permitting plans in a timely manner while giving the industry additional certainty, coming as result of broad input from key stakeholders,” said Ross Gould, vice president of supply chain development and research at Oceantic Network:
“We anticipate close coordination between BOEM and offshore wind developers to collectively uphold the highest environmental standards of any marine industry while advancing more commercial-scale projects.”