NJ Board of Public Utilities formally terminates Ørsted offshore wind projects 

August 14, 2024: Today the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities formally vacated all of its Orders that approved the Ocean Wind One and Ocean Wind Two offshore wind projects owned by the foreign offshore wind corporation Ørsted. NJBPU’s actions follow the filing of lawsuits by the County of Cape May in the New Jersey Appellate Division as well as in the Federal District Court. Cape May County challenged the BPU’s Orders, all of which have now be vacated and deemed of no force or effect. The State of New Jersey agreed to let Ørsted keep $175 million in escrow funds in exchange for vacating the BPU Orders. Cape May County’s actions before the Appellate Division and the Federal District Court remain active at this time.

“Today is a very important day in our ongoing opposition to these environmentally destructive offshore wind projects,” said Cape May County Commission Director Len Desiderio. “The vacation of these Orders by the BPU means that it will be much more difficult for Ørsted or any other Big Wind company to utilize these lease areas just a few miles off of Cape May County beaches. As we have seen in Nantucket over the past few weeks, these industrial electricity-generating facilities represent an unacceptable threat to our environment and, consequently, to our local economy. In Nantucket, the disintegration of a single turbine blade has lead to tens of thousands of pounds of fiberglass, foam, industrial adhesive and other contaminants in the water and washing up on local beaches, which have had to be closed. We cannot allow that to happen to Cape May County.”

In Nantucket, Massachusetts a 115,000 pound turbine blade as long as a football field broke and disintegrated spewing tons of industrial waste into the Atlantic coastal environment and fouling miles of beaches. The town has had to close the beaches more than once with terrible impact on the local tourism economy. Clean-up efforts are continuing with Vineyard Wind wind project employees working in haz-mat suits collecting thousand of pieces of jagged fiberglass and foam, some chucks over six feet in length while innumerable smaller pieces have entered the aquatic environment.

“They say you can never know which straw will break the camel’s back,” said former New Jersey Superior Court Judge and Cape May County Special Counsel for Offshore Wind, Michael Donohue. “But we can know for sure that the County of Cape May and its partners in the fishing and tourism industries as well as respectable environmental groups certainly contributed to Ørsted’s decision to abandon the Ocean Wind industrial offshore wind projects. And that decision led directly to their agreement to have the Board of Public Utilities rescind their approvals for Ocean Wind One and Ocean Wind Two. We have informed the Appellate Division of the New Jersey Superior Court that we believe that there are still Constitutional and conflicts-of-interest questions that they should hear. We are also likely to amend our Federal Court filings since the actions of the NJBPU would appear to have nullified Ørsted’s federal permits.”

The County of Cape May is also supporting the efforts of the City of Brigantine in Atlantic County in its opposition to the Atlantic Shores offshore wind project. Atlantic Shores will be only 8 miles off of Brigantine and will be visible from the north end of Cape May County.

“We saw with the Vineyard Wind environmental catastrophe in Nantucket that tons of industrial debris quickly traversed fifteen miles of open ocean to end up on Nantucket’s beaches,” Donohue said. “With a similar blade disintegration in the Atlantic Shores project, given the typical southerly currents close to shore, Cape May County’s beaches would be strewn with thousands of pieces of jagged fiberglass and foam. This would be absolutely devastating to our local families and businesses that depend on our beaches for their livelihood. This includes everything from restaurants and retail shops, to amusement piers and campgrounds.”

Click here to view the BPU order granting the motions to vacate.