The New York State Public Service Commission has denied petitions to reconsider its March order granting the South Fork Wind Farm a certificate of Environmental Compatibility and Public Need, one of several requirements for its construction and operation.
Citizens for the Preservation of Wainscott, a group of property owners that formed in the wake of the developers' plan to land the wind farm's export cable at the ocean beach at the end of Beach Lane, and Simon Kinsella, a Wainscott resident and vocal opponent of the plan, filed petitions for rehearing in April.
The citizens group had sought to force a vote to incorporate a 4.4-square-mile expanse of the hamlet, forming a self-governing village, in an effort to thwart the plan to land the export cable there. In March, East Hampton Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc declared the petition legally insufficient and rejected it.
The developers, Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind and Eversource Energy, along with PSEG Long Island, the state's departments of Public Service and Environmental Conservation, the East Hampton Town Trustees, and the activist group Win With Wind all submitted responses to the petitions for rehearing.
Any interested person can apply for rehearing of a Public Service Commission order within 30 days after it is received, but their petition must establish either that the commission committed an error of law or fact, or that new circumstances warrant a different determination. Each alleged error or new circumstance must be identified. In this case, the commission ruled that the petitioners had failed to do either.
Both Mr. Kinsella and the citizens' group claimed errors of fact and law, but neither raised any new circumstances, according to a statement from the commission last Thursday. Rather, their petitions "simply reiterate petitioners' arguments made in the context of the case and in opposition to the joint proposal, all of which were appropriately addressed by the Commission in the underlying Certificate Order. Mere disagreement with the Certificate Order does not create an error of fact or law."
The petitioners' primary argument, the commissioners wrote, was that they should have rejected the planned route of the export cable in favor of an alternative route they had proposed, a landing at state-owned land at Hither Hills in Montauk and an underground path from there to the substation. The commission was not persuaded, writing that the petitioners "fail to acknowledge any of the contrary evidence in the record raised by the supporting parties as to the negative impacts attached to that route."
The commissioners also rejected the argument that they had ignored the existence of perfluorinated chemicals (PFAS) along the cable route, writing that they "mischaracterize the aspect of the Certificate Order that examined issues related to PFAS." The commission did not ignore the existence of PFAS contamination, according to its statement. Rather, "the Commission determined that such evidence was not sufficiently convincing."
"That Petitioners disagree with the Commission's determination does not make its determination an error of law or fact," the statement said. It also called claims that the Commission erred in finding that the wind farm will comply with state and local laws, "unsupported."
"We have reviewed all of the petitioners' claims," the Commission concluded, "and find them to be without merit."
Citizens for the Preservation of Wainscott issued a statement on Friday in response to the denial of its petition. The state, like the town, has "rubber-stamped the work of a corporation with a self-serving agenda and no stake in our community," the group wrote. The commissioners, "while under immense political pressure to produce immediate results," simply accepted the developers' findings, it charged, relying "too heavily on the support" of the East Hampton Town Board, "which recklessly pushed a risky, subscale vanity project" and accommodated the developers "for a cash payment" (a reference to the "host community" agreement that the board and the town trustees executed early this year).
The commission "failed to provide any meaningful discussion or analysis related to dangerous PFAS contamination," the group added, and "failed to render a reasoned decision (as it was required to do under law) that explains its asserted conclusion" that the wind farm "represents the minimum adverse environmental impact to the people of Wainscott who live along the construction route."
The citizens group vowed to continue its challenge to the state order "in a forum removed from political pressure."
