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Description
With the passage of the
Energy Policy
Act (EPAct) of 2005, the Minerals Management Service (MMS) was given
jurisdiction over alternative energy projects, such as wave, wind and solar
energy, and other projects that make alternative use of existing oil and natural
gas platforms in Federal waters. Under this new authority, MMS became the lead
Federal agency for regulatory oversight of the Long Island Offshore Wind Park
(LIOWP) project.
 Long Island Power Authority and Florida Power and Light Energy
(LIPS/FPL E) proposes to build and operate a wind park consisting of 40, 3.6
megawatt (MW) wind turbine generators covering 8 square miles in Federal waters,
approximately 3.6 miles south of Jones Beach Island, Long Island, New York.
In the past several months, the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA)
has been reevaluating the need for its offshore wind park. The MMS is
currently awaiting the official decision from LIPA on the disposition of the
Long Island Offshore Wind Park project.
Also available is the
Application for the LIOWP
(148.53 KB PDF file).
The
application for this project consists of planning documentation originating from
2001 and extending through January 2006. This docket of information
(Application) contains planning, assumptions, and contingencies that were
applicable to the state of the project at the time the documentation was
prepared and published by LIOWP or its contractors. The MMS has accepted this
documentation as sufficient descriptive basis for the project’s conceptual
design with conditions that define additional information to be developed
during a more rigorous, analytical process under the
National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The NEPA review will serve to define
the project’s final parameters during the public process of preparing an
Environmental Impact Statement.
As 2007 begins, the MMS team preparing the Environmental Impact
Statement (EIS) for the LIOWP proposal is gathering information to write an updated
description of the project that includes the circumstances that would produce
impacts. At the same time we are writing the EIS descriptions of the physical,
biological, socioeconomic, and human resources that could potentially be
affected by the proposed wind park. Influence diagrams for each phase of the
project; construction, operation and maintenance, and decommissioning help us
map affected resources to the kinds of impacts that could be anticipated based
on how the project would be built, operated, and concluded. The relationships
between environmental resources and the kinds of impacts anticipated in turn
provides the basis for writing the EIS sections that examine the degree of
significance for the kinds of impacts identified.
Over the last months we have looked over the information received
during scoping and are developing a range of alternatives to the proposed wind
park that are consistent with the purpose and need for our review of the LIOWP
applicant’s proposal. We have also been meeting with representatives from
Federal and New York State cooperating agencies on our evaluation that have
consultation roles required under environmental law and who have special
expertise to help us design the analyses for visual impacts, navigation risk,
and risk of the wind park to birds.
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Last Updated:
03/28/2008,
01:10:49 PM
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