|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Thursday approved Vineyard Wind’s long-pending request to continue using the New Bedford hurricane barrier to transport major turbine components. Though not a new permit approval or issuance, the action appears to mark one of the only approvals from a federal agency to an offshore wind project since President Donald Trump’s day-one permitting freeze, which was struck down earlier this month.
The Army Corps, an agency under the Department of Defense, manages the barrier. Years ago, it issued a Section 408 authorization to Vineyard Wind, allowing the project to send heavy lift boats and wide barges through the barrier’s 150-foot-wide opening.
Vineyard Wind was allowed an extension last year, which was set to expire on Dec. 31 — before the project could finish its installation campaign. Now, the project has through June 2026 to send vessels through the barrier for turbine installation, though the project may wrap up well before then.
A denial from the Army Corps wouldn’t have stopped the project from finishing buildout. Still, it could have added time and costs to the already delayed project, which was devising plans to use a Rhode Island port if necessary, according to a source.
The language in the Army Corps’ Dec. 18 approval letter mirrors the language from last year’s, except for the new date: “The District has reviewed the reasons provided in support of your subsequent extension request and agrees that, based on those reasons, an extension of time to June 30, 2026 is warranted, will not impair the usefulness of the New Bedford Hurricane Barrier, and will not be injurious to the public interest.”
Vineyard Wind did not immediately respond to a request for comment. With this approval in hand, the project has managed to get by largely unscathed amid Trump’s offshore wind crackdown, which hit a legal road block this month.
On Dec. 8, federal judge Patti B. Saris ruled that Trump’s day-one offshore wind memo, which froze permitting, was unlawful.
Saris issued her judgment Thursday: “Each Agency Defendant’s decision to implement section 2(a) of the Presidential Memorandum … by not issuing new or renewed approvals, rights of way, permits, leases, or loans for onshore or offshore wind projects pending the completion of a comprehensive assessment and review of Federal wind leasing and permitting practices … is hereby declared unlawful and is vacated in its entirety.”
The judgment does not include further information on how her ruling will be enforced. It is still unclear what relief this will bring to specific projects awaiting permits. Her ruling does not require permit approvals, just that agencies process permit applications and make a decision within a reasonable time, as required by the relevant laws.
The Conservation Law Foundation said the judgment requires federal agencies to start processing permits again. If they don’t, the states can return to the court to seek further relief.
ClearView Energy Partners, a D.C.-based research firm, has said the Trump administration is taking a “bifurcated approach” and allowing “only a handful of advanced-stage offshore wind projects to finish construction and come online as the industry’s most favorable near-term outcome.”
Vineyard Wind has one turbine left to install, as well as several sets of blades. The project shipped its first turbine through the hurricane barrier in September 2023.
Email Anastasia E. Lennon at alennon@newbedfordlight.org.
