Tag Archives: Connecticut Port Authority
Bond Commission grant would provide aid for repairs at Stonington Town Dock
Members of the State Bond Commission have tentatively approved a $250,000 grant to aid with renovations of the North Pier at Stonington Town Dock. The commission voted unanimously to approve the request, which augments the $900,000 federal grant already provided to the town, will cover the entire remaining cost of the project and provides the community with money for needed rehabilitation work and upgrades at the Stonington Town Dock. “This is a huge win for Stonington because the money will support the continued operations of Connecticut’s Last Fishing Fleet. >click to read< 09:01
Connecticut Port Authority obtains final permit for State Pier work
Offshore wind partners Ørsted and Eversource have partnered with the state to fund the $235 million overhaul of State Pier as a staging area for several planned offshore wind farms along the East Coast. Ørsted has said the project is projected to produce 460 construction jobs and 100 offshore wind-related jobs and provide a boost to the local economy. Critics of the project have said that most of the jobs are temporary and the lease of the pier by the offshore wind industry will serve to block traditional cargo vessels and a diversity of economic opportunities there. >click to read< 14:27
Key Word -“displaced”: New London wants state to fund new pier for displaced fishermen.
The city is calling on the Connecticut Port Authority to help establish a new home for two commercial fishing businesses being displaced from State Pier. The city says it’s found a spot on its waterfront for a new pier but doesn’t have the money to fund a project. Mayor Michael Passero is calling on the port authority to provide the funding. The fishermen — Montville-based Donna May Fisheries and Waterford-based Out of Our Shell Enterprises — are among the tenants of State Pier being displaced by a $157 million project to redevelop it into a staging and assembly hub for the offshore wind industry. The redevelopment project is a partnership between the Connecticut Port Authority, Ørsted and Eversource. >click to read< 07:56
Fishermen and road salt contractor eviciton deadline from State Pier is delayed
State Pier operator Gateway has extended the deadline for port tenants to move out, giving commercial fishermen and a major local road salt distributor an extra four months to find a new home. The extension is not coronavirus related, rather the result of negotiations among Gateway, the Connecticut Port Authority and tenants who were expecting to be displaced March 31 to accommodate the offshore wind industry. Construction activity associated with a $157 million planned overhaul of the port is expected to begin later this year as it converts into a wind turbine staging area for joint partners Ørsted and Eversource. >click to read< 08:01
Dirty Wind: State Pier operator notifies occupants it’s time to go
With the offshore wind farms poised to move in, time is running short for the tenants and work crews at State Pier who expect to be displaced as early as next month. The businesses operating at the pier recently received a March 31 deadline to vacate, leaving some scrambling to find an alternate location to stay afloat. Longshoremen, fishermen, DRVN Enterprises,,, At the adjoining Central Vermont Railroad Pier, part of the State Pier property, commercial scallop fisherman Kevin Debbis of Montville is in a similar predicament. He surmised his time was limited but said he was caught off guard by the short notice. He’s trying to find a spot for his 55-foot boat, Lynn Marie, which along with at least two other fishing boats has been working off of the pier. He has called the pier home for nearly two decades. >click to read< 12:56
Dirty Wind, Dirty Politics. Pier remake could cost state three times $93 million estimate
Tuesday morning, Gov. Ned Lamont plans what I would have to call the most egregious overreach of executive power and assault on open public governing I’ve ever seen. And I’m old. It’s hard to know exactly what will unfold at a special meeting today of the board of Lamont’s stepchild, the corrupt and dysfunctional Connecticut Port Authority, because the governor, incredibly, won’t disclose the deals he plans for them to vote on. An agenda for the meeting posted late Friday afternoon suggests the board will vote on the still-secret deal to rebuild State Pier as a wind turbine assembly facility mostly closed to routine marine cargo, its historic purpose. >click to read< 15:31
Dirty Wind. When public business is done behind closed doors
That’s exactly what was going on last winter, when the Connecticut Port Authority, we now know, was hatching a grand plan, in secret, to drastically remake the historic port of New London, filling in seven acres of the river between the two existing piers, one a stone 19th Century structure on the National Register of Historic Places. The extensive $93 million project, to be done at the behest of Danish wind power giant Orsted and Connecticut utility Eversource, with the state contributing $35 million, would potentially close the port to traditional cargo for the better part of a generation. >click to read< 11:56
New London commission submits input for State Pier plans
The New London Harbor Management Commission is asking state environmental officials and the Connecticut Port Authority to retain a diverse mix of water, rail and land-based operations at State Pier. The request is one of several contained in a six-page letter,,, The commission requests that consideration be given to the movement of the commercial fishing fleet now operating at the Central Vermont Railroad Pier. At least four vessels operate from that pier. Mayor Michael Passero said he is working with stakeholders to explore the idea of Fisherman’s Pier, on the city’s waterfront, as a new location for the fleet. >click to read< 07:32
Will Connecticut Gov. Lamont entertain public input on a wind-only port?
Let’s all humor Gov. Ned Lamont and join him in looking away from the messy scandals at the Connecticut Port Authority and concentrate instead on the wind deal that the troubled agency hatched, a plan that could close the port of New London to traditional cargo for the better part of a generation. If I have the governor’s timetable correct, there will soon be a grand unveiling of the final $93 million plan, as already sketched out in permit applications, to convert New London’s port to a giant wind turbine assembly pad. >click to read< 10:20
CT offshore wind may face some rough seas
The state and its offshore-wind-loving neighbors all face a year-end expiration of a federal tax credit that helps finance these projects – the first major attempts in the U.S. But in Connecticut some problems – including at least one self-inflicted one – could mean forgoing that money.,, One part of that balancing act involves the fishing industry, which seems to have driven the delay after the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), a division of NOAA, refused to sign off on the Vineyard Wind environmental impact statement. Indeed, the fishing industry is among the few cheering the government’s protracted analysis of the plan.,,, >click to read< 09:48
Fighting Dirty Business! Farmer’s battle with port authority started with a plan for rocks
Kevin Blacker has a rock-solid plan and he’s not letting it go. Unlike other farmers who just learn to live with boulders,,, As the sea level rises, he expects to see increased demand for boulders to protect the shoreline.,, Unfortunately his boulder-shipping project has been waylaid, he said, by the Connecticut Port Authority’s plan to use the State Pier in New London as a hub exclusively for the assembly and transport of wind farm components. Blacker says the state has implied that the $93 million plan was a done deal. The deal would be with pier operator Gateway Terminal and Bay State Wind, a joint venture of Ørsted and Eversource. In fact, the agreement is still being negotiated, but Blacker said the state and its partners wanted “to make people think it’s done and that there’s nothing we can do about it. >click to read< 12:26
The “Silicon Valley of renewable energy”? – New London gets shorted in the wind deal
There was enough hot air blowing around New London for the recent announcement about plans to spend $93 million for a new wind turbine assembly facility here to light up more than a few quadrants of the state’s power grid. The politicians and wind power purveyors who secretly have been hatching this plan for many months in back rooms finally pulled back the curtain to congratulate themselves and tell the public, who will pay for it all, what is to be foisted on them. >click to read<20:44
