February 18, 2020 — A Senate commission wants to know who is to blame and who is going to pay to bury the exposed electric cables from the Block Island Wind Farm.
The Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC) said its geologist recommended before construction of the offshore wind facility that Deepwater Wind, now owned by Denmark-based Ørsted, bury the two cables 6-8 feet deep using a process known as horizontal directional drilling.
Deepwater Wind, however, relied on an independent engineering report that concluded the 12-inch-diameter cable could be buried at a depth of 2-4 feet using a devise called a jet plow.
According to CRMC executive director Grover Fugate, CRMC’s governing board relied on the independent report to approve the more shallow depth using the jet plow process.
Fugate explained at a recent commission hearing that the jet plow was preferred because it uses a high-pressure spray of water to quickly create a trench and bury the cable. That worked for the sandy seafloor further offshore, but when the jet plow encountered the boulders and cobble near Block Island’s Crescent Beach it simply rose over the impediments and buried the cables at a shallow depth.
The 34,500-volt power line from the five-turbine Block Island Wind Farm reaches shore at Fred Benson Town Beach and leaves the island for Narragansett at Crescent Beach to the north. Keeping portions of the cables buried at Crescent Beach has been a struggle for the past four years.