At the June 12 Sea Girt Borough Council meeting, windmills, not the Parker House liquor license, was the hot topic. Opponents of multiple NJ offshore wind farms expressed concern for whales, marine life, ocean vistas, noise, the fishing business, EMF, and the economic viability of the massive NJ wind turbines planned off our coast.
The reason they came were plans that the National Guard Camp along Sea Girt Avenue has been selected as one of two landfall sites for the undersea cables carrying the electric current to the grid.
Normally a "joint box" is built below grade, close to the shoreline to connect the buried undersea cables with the land-based power lines. Presenters described subterranean lines going up Sea Girt Ave, across the tracks near the library, down Rt.71 to Manasquan and along the old railway/ bike path into Howell to connect the power to the grid at the Larabee substation. The 12 miles of cable would carry 230kv of energy.
The Guard Camp which the Sea Girt Land Improvement Company sold to the state for a shooting range in 1887 was viewed by JCP&L as an ideal location for this project. Parent First Energy stated:
"In addition, the use of a single transmission corridor to bring the electricity onshore will reduce environmental impacts and community disruption."
Town leaders expressed that they were kept in the dark about these plans and are exploring all their options. The utilities need to obtain right-of-ways to lay the 12 miles of cable.
Democracy was on full display, with residents and concerned groups educating the public, soliciting support and discussing plans to use every means possible to prevent the project from moving forward. There was very little support expressed for the massive wind project, although many acknowledged the need for additional power generation resources.
Windmills have been around since ancient Egypt. The first large-scale wind project was proposed in the Babylonian city of King Hammurabi for irrigation before 1750BC. The Persians spread their popularity to China and Europe. Wind either turned a millstone, or pumped water. Irrigation and salt making were popular uses.
England and the Netherlands embraced upright tower windmills and by the 17th century, thousands dotted the landscape. The Pilgrims, most of whom were from the Netherlands, brought the windmill to America. The Farris windmill built near Yarmouth on Cape Cod is the oldest in the US and dates from 1633.
Farris windmill Cape Cod, the oldest in America Public Domain
In Monmouth County, there were a few here and there, although most mills were waterwheels like the Old Mill in Spring Lake Heights. Windmills were a homemade affair for farmers before the 1870s. You could buy a full set of plans for a sail-driven wooden windmill for $5. This allowed farmers to utilize land away from lakes and streams. To water a barn full of dairy cows would take a man several hours per day at a hand pump, and the wind-driven pumps required regular oil and maintenance, but minimal manual labor.
In the 1870s, the first manufactured windmills were produced, and by the early 1800s, America was supplying the world with windmills for pumping water. Metal replaced wood for the blades, and they could turn with a vane to protect against high winds. In rural areas across America, the tall structures were the first signal you had reached a homestead.
Old Windmill advertisement
In 1874 a writer urged the Ocean Grove Community to install two large windmills for fire protection, to pump water from its two lakes into elevated tanks to create the water pressure. A few years later, the Camp Meeting prevented Myra Osborne from putting one in her front yard.
Sea Girt got its first Windmill in 1879. The Freehold and Jamesburg Railroad which brought Philadelphia passengers through Monmouth Junction to the shore, built one to pump water for their steam engines. Unfortunately, it lasted just a few weeks, as an April gale blew it down and broke it to pieces.
In the 1880s, experimenters began to use the surplus wind to run a dynamo and charge crude batteries. These were then used to run the windmill during calm.
Marriott Morris of Sea Girt took this photo of kids playing on a Meadowview farm DE windmill 1912. Library Company of Philadelphia Marriott C. Morris Collection
By the 1900s, there were multiple schemes afoot to generate electricity. A 1907 article in the Long Branch Press urged readers, "Do not waste the wind. Just Cork it up, heat and light your house with it. Fuel at zero per year." That same year, a winter storm tore the wheel right off of windmill of the Manasquan House.
The next windmill project to come to Sea Girt was also at the National Guard Camp. In 2010 the Guard proposed to construct large turbines on their property. Criticized as too close to homes and in the flight path of migratory birds, people rose up. Municipal leaders in Sea Girt and Manasquan along with citizen groups raised a ruckus and the project which seemed to be sailing to completion was stopped in its tracks in 2011.
Governor Corzine in the late 2000's decided that offshore wind was the solution to get New Jersey to be a leader in renewable energy. 15 years later, millions have been spent, but wind has not he broken onto the leaderboard for energy in the state. We have six turbines, most of them in the estuaries of Atlantic City, with one in Bayonne. The complexity of wind seems to have been vastly underestimated, and it remains to be seen if the projects will succeed.
Source of NJ Power Generation
Natural gas: 51.4%
Nuclear power: 44.1%
Solar energy: 2.5%
Biomass: 1.1%
Petroleum: 0.1%
Other gases: 0.3%
Other: 0.9%
Windmills for energy production currently only makes economic sense for the investors if they get tax credits. While on paper it should be one of the cheaper sources of energy, Warren Buffet makes more money on tax subsidies than on his Iowa wind power. “On wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.” The ocean complicates things. It moves the visual distraction to the horizon, but as people who live by the sea, we know that it’s a hard environment to master and one we don’t understand as well.
It’s an interesting issue with a local impact. Learn about it. Have an opinion. Get involved if you choose.