N.Y. utility scrapping ocean wind park

GARDEN CITY, N.Y. – Long Island’s utility company intends to dump plans to build a $700 million wind energy park in the Atlantic Ocean, a top official said.

“It’s just too expensive,” Long Island Power Authority Chairman Kevin Law told The Associated Press. “It’s not going to work. This is an economically based decision. We didn’t even have to consider environmental or aesthetic concerns.”


The utility’s board of directors will meet next month to officially vote on scrapping the project.

Initially popular with environmental activists, politicians and residents, the project, which was to include 40 turbines in an 8-square-mile area, has lost support because of construction costs and concerns that it would mar the landscape of Long Island’s south shore beaches.

It is the second offshore wind project to be scrapped in recent months. A developer in South Texas called off construction of about 170 turbines there after determining it no longer made economic sense to proceed. That developer said building an offshore farm would have been more than double the cost of one on land.

AP