Yarmouth shellfishermen to participate in offshore wind cable hearings

BOSTON — Two Yarmouth shellfishermen will have a limited say at state hearings that determine the route of an 800-megawatt transmission cable proposed by offshore energy company Vineyard Wind.

“I’m not extremely happy about it,” aquaculture grantholder Michael Dunbar said of Wednesday’s ruling by Massachusetts Energy Facilities Siting Board presiding officer Kathryn Sedor to allow Dunbar and fellow grant-holder Edmund Janiunas to become a joint limited participant in the hearings, instead of an intervenor.

As limited participants, the two men are entitled to receive copies of all documents issued; are allowed to file written responses at the close of the hearings and when the board issues its tentative decision; and can address the board when it meets to make that decision. They will not be allowed to introduce new evidence, cross examine witnesses or appeal the board’s decision, rights granted to intervenors.

Dunbar and Janiunas, two of four Lewis Bay aquafarmers, both hold grants in the eastern end of bay, near Vineyard Wind’s preferred cable route.

“Technically, we’re probably the closest abutters or the only abutter,” Dunbar said.” And I don’t think that they really gave us a chance to really be heard in this.”

On Sept. 6, Dunbar, who owns Dunbar Aquafarm, and Janiunas, who owns Sweetheart Creek Oyster Co. LLC, sent a letter to Sedor petitioning for the right to participate in future hearings related to the proposed cable route. The route would run from Vineyard Wind’s planned turbines southwest of Martha’s Vineyard, through Nantucket Sound and Lewis Bay, making landfall at New Hampshire Avenue in West Yarmouth and continuing onshore in Yarmouth to an electrical substation in Barnstable.

The proximity of the men’s grant areas means their oysters, which total about 3,250,000, could be smothered by sand and silt that’s stirred up when Vineyard Wind lays the cable, the letter contends. Although Vineyard Wind officials have met with the shellfishermen multiple times and proposed solutions that include installing silt curtains while work is conducted, there’s no evidence those solutions will work, according to the letter.

Dunbar, who’s been operating his aquafarm for 17 years and has invested more than $100,000 into the venture, said Saturday that his livelihood depends on the shellfish he harvests from Lewis Bay.

“If I can’t go shellfishing because something goes horribly wrong, I have no income,” he said.

A week after the shellfishermen filed the petition, Vineyard Wind attorneys responded with their own letter to Sedor, saying they support Dunbar and Janiunas being granted status as limited participants, but that the timing of their request should disqualify them from becoming intervenors. Siting board proceedings required any parties wishing to participate as intervenors to petition the board by May 8, the company’s letter says.

In March and April, as required by the siting board, Vineyard Wind issued notice of the hearing process to all abutters, certain municipalities, town halls and libraries, and published the notice in three newspapers, according to the letter, which also contends that rather than becoming intervenors, Dunbar and Janiunas could have their concerns represented by the town of Yarmouth.

But in another written response to Seder dated Sept. 18, Dunbar and Janiunas deny the charge their petition was late.

“A petitioner may be viewed as filing a late request only when that petitioner had notice of a deadline,” they wrote in the response. “The cause of the date of our request is due to the lack of notice to us from any party involved in these hearings.”

Their response contends that, although they hold commercial and shellfish propagation licenses through the town and state, and maintain leases with the town, they did not receive any notice of the hearings or the fact that they could be eligible to participate.

“As the largest abutter, as tenants with a lease for actual acreage in Lewis Bay estuary, and as individuals with permits to operate our oyster farms in Lewis Bay estuary, we believe we were entitled to receive more than general public notice of this proceeding,” the response says.

The letter goes on to detail a slew of concerns Dunbar and Janiunus have about the cable’s installation, including the potential for future disruptions to the seabed when repairs are required; the hazard that dioxin — a toxic compound that would be used to expand the Barnstable substation — could pose to a nearby aquifer and to the Lewis Bay watershed; and irreparable damage to metal cages used on the aquafarms if even the slightest amount of electricity leaks from the cable.

The ideal conditions the Lewis Bay estuary currently provides for oyster growth are fragile, the letter contends.

“We are at risk of losing our wholesale customers if the quality of the oysters is diminished by even the slightest presence of sand or silt inside the oyster,” the letter says.

In her ruling, Sedor found that the shellfishermen’s application was late, but used the discretion she’s allowed as presiding officer to grant them limited participant status.

“The petitioners in their Joint Request to intervene, and supplements to it, have demonstrated a clear and strong interest in the Vineyard Wind Project, particularly the potential impacts of transmission line installation in Lewis Bay, where the petitioners oyster farms are located,” she wrote in her finding.

On Thursday, Janiunas clarified that despite their stance on the cable, the shellfisherman aren’t opposed to the wind farm.

“Mike and I both have opinions that are both strongly for alternative energy, but opposed to cables in Lewis Bay, especially when they have alternatives,” Janiunas said. “Potentially the least cost, but the most environmental damage will be done if they lay cables in Lewis Bay.”

The alternative Janiunus referred to is Vineyard Wind’s second choice landing site at Covell Beach in Centerville, a location that opponents of the Yarmouth landing site say provides a clear path through Nantucket Sound without entering any ecologically sensitive estuaries.

Vineyard Wind officials maintain the Covell site poses challenges because eelgrass — which provides a habitat for certain species of endangered fish — was recently found near the beach, and because densely populated residential neighborhoods along the onshore route would make the trenching process complicated and expensive.

The company plans to continue working with the shellfishermen, officials wrote in a statement.

“Vineyard Wind recognizes the aquaculture farmers of Lewis Bay have unique concerns about installation of the proposed cable in Lewis Bay,” the statement says. “For this reason, we have been in active discussions with them since we announced our proposal. We will continue to work with them going forward.”