Commission vote throws offshore wind plans into confusion - The Salem News

Commission vote throws offshore wind plans into confusion | News | salemnews.com

SALEM — In an unexpected move — amid pressure from the developer for a decision — the city’s Conservation Commission has voted to deny a key approval for the planned offshore wind project in Salem Harbor, injecting some uncertainty into the next steps for the project.

The five-member commission voted 4-1 at its Sept. 19 meeting to deny the application for an order of conditions for Salem Offshore Wind Terminal.

The commission’s vote came amid discomfort over unresolved peer review concerns and a newly surfaced concern about nighttime lighting on the property.

“There’s a big decision for all of us, because this isn’t something we normally do,” commission member Judith Köhn said. “But we have a motion to deny, and the outfall from that will be the outfall from that. We can’t take more action this evening to change that.”

The fallout is still being assessed, Ward 1 City Councilor Bob McCarthy confirmed Monday, six days after the meeting.

“With a no-vote, does that trigger a refile? How do you work with that?” McCarthy said. “Those are the questions I’ve asked and I think are being worked out internally with legal, with the mayor’s office, Crowley and their team and legal department.

“ConCom has now denied the application. They did kind of list what their concerns were,” McCarthy said. “So how do we address the concerns and potentially refile to meet those concerns so we can keep the project moving forward?”

Further details weren’t available from the city on Monday. Planning Director Tom Daniel, who is the city’s point person for this aspect of the project, was unavailable for comment.

Last Tuesday’s vote came at the end of more than an hour of discussion, during which a peer reviewer with the engineering firm Weston and Sampson went over his outstanding concerns on the project. Among them was drainage, specifically where the most recent version of the plan called for a single catch basin to handle stormwater runoff for a roughly 16-acre area.

The commission also focused on the proposed lighting for the property at night — specifically 15 light poles standing 120 feet tall. The plans showed the lights will use 7,000 watts of power each, with 12 emitting more than 53,503 lumens per lamp and three at 72,480 lumens, which one commissioner compared to lights along a highway or at an airport.

The lights are largely placed along the edges of the work areas, with four along the western edge of the property bordering Blaney Street and two on the east side bordering the South Essex Sewerage District. Five also wrap around the Salem Harbor Footprint property, while four more would run along the water.

“I’d like to just revisit the light question,” Commissioner Bart Hoskins said. “I’m starting to picture something that would look like a baseball field at night. I’d like to think the residents around it could really be put off, or people on the water.”

Dirk Grotenhuis, a civil engineer working with Crowley on the project, argued that the nature of the work demands tall lighting options.

“Some of the equipment, materials being stored are very large and tall,” Grotenhuis said. “Sometimes they need to have some lighting to get over the top of these.”

Commissioner Tyler Glode countered, “I’m just curious as to what the driving factor was. I’d be very curious to see how far the light levels extend over the ocean and harbor area. I understand, obviously, that you’re trying to light up that area for work.

“I understand the purpose and safety behind it. I’m just wondering if there’s a way we can have something that isn’t as large and imposing.”

The conversation also returned to the stormwater runoff demands of the property and the lone catch basin tasked with handling such a large site. Commissioners raised concerns about unfiltered water from the property — and with it any contaminants on the property, like oil — reaching the ocean or Salem waterways.

Grotenhuis said part of the concern with adding more catch basins was that they would create divots in a driving surface area for vehicles hauling massive wind turbine parts.

“Say, a catch basin as you’d see in a potential parking lot would drain into these smaller depression areas,” he said. “Those required changes in grades are very minor, but if a wheel goes into that area, it could become unstable.”

As for one catch basin for 16 acres of runoff, “if it (water flow) does exceed (what the catch basin can handle), it’ll flow into the harbor, much as it does today, exactly the same situation as it is today. You aren’t going to be catching that sediment in an oil-water separator anyway at those flows,” he said.

The engineer’s answers didn’t satisfy Köhn’s concerns.

“What I’ve been hearing is, ‘It’s about what it is now or a little better than it is now,’ reflecting back on a pretty ugly, unpopular project that was taken away,” she said.

“Not to get on a soapbox, but we’re looking at the future over 25 years, which is what the life of this facility is, with very little ideas to address the mitigation of future flood impacts, what’s happening in the neighborhood, what’s happening with the abutters.

“I know our purview isn’t lighting,” Köhn said, “but I am a landscape architect, so I know what the impact of that lighting will be on the neighbors.”

When it came time to continue the discussion to a later date or close the hearing and discuss a possible vote, project proponents pressed for the commission to vote. That took the form of a motion to support the project, with several conditions. But commissioners then voted 0-5, as members later expressed discomfort in approving the project in its current state.

The question then became what happens next.

“Tyler made a motion to approve the project,” chairperson Gregory St. Louis said. “The contrary would be to make a motion to deny the project.”

Köhn made a motion to deny the project, and after some contemplation, Hoskins seconded it. On roll-call, St. Louis, Hoskins, Köhn, and member Tom Campbell voted to deny the application, with Glode in opposition.

“So that’s 4-1 in favor of denying,” St. Louis said. “The matter is closed.”

Contact Dustin Luca at 978-338-2523 or DLuca@salemnews.com. Follow him at facebook.com/dustinluca or on Twitter @DustinLucaSN.