Permitting
The project’s Construction and Operations Plan (COP) was submitted to BOEM in June of 2018, detailing the construction specifications, the amount of turbines to be installed, and the power capacity.
The submission of the COP initiated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review process, with a Notice of Intent to Prepare an EIS published by BOEM in October 2018, NYS followed by a month long public comment period. In September 2018, the developers submitted an Application for Certificate of Environmental Compatibility and Public Need for the construction of the export cable and associated interconnection infrastructure to the New York Department of Public Service (DPS).
The COP went through multiple revisions – in May of 2019, February of 2020, July of 2020 and May of 2020. In between revisions, in January 2020, the lease was transferred from Deepwater Wind New England to Deepwater Wind South Fork, after the sale of Deepwater Wind to Ørsted. 13,700 acres of the initial lease area was transferred to Deepwater Wind South Fork for this project, and the lease area was reassigned as OCS-A 0517.
In January 2021, the first draft of the updated COP was completed, with the final EIS published August 2021. Shortly before this, in March 2021, South Fork Wind and the Town of East Hampton agreed to a Host Community Agreement, where the developers would pay the town a total of $29 million over the 25 years of the project’s lifetime. By January 2022, the COP was approved by BOEM and the DPS approved construction of the export cable, allowing all construction to proceed.