Officials support wind production hub at marine terminal

U.S. Reps. Jerrold Nadler and Nydia Velazquez are supporting a plan to build what would become the nation’s first offshore wind farm production hub at the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal (SBMT).

The initiative is known as Empire Wind’s Port Infrastructure Improvement Plan.

The officials wrote a letter to Gov. Andrew Cuomo to ask him to consider the plan.

“Empire Wind proposes the nation’s first offshore wind supply chain to support construction,

assembly, installation and operation of offshore wind facilities,” the letter said. “SBMT is in the largest Industrial Business Zone in New York City and is perfectly situated as the port facility to deploy offshore wind farms off the coast of Long Island and New England (Beacon Wind).”

They said the terminal is less than one day’s sail from each of the nine east coast wind farm development areas designated by the Federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

Equinor’s Empire Wind states that the hub is planned for an area of 80,000 acres in federal waters, an average of 20 miles south of Long Island, east of the Rockaways. If completed, it would power more than a million New York homes.

“A project at SBMT will be part of the ecosystem of working waterfront we foster in Brooklyn,” Nadler and Velazquez said. “It is also located in an environmental justice community and can offer equitable economic opportunity for residents and area small businesses through training, workforce development and contracting. Indeed, this project is well suited to meet the goals set out five years ago by the Sunset Park Waterfront Planning and Jobs Task Force to maximize the waterfront’s potential as an economic hub of traditional and innovating industries, job creation and workforce development.”

Last month, local activists asked the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority to invest in port infrastructure improvements to make Sunset Park’s industrial waterfront into an offshore wind energy hub, specifically at the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal. Proponents believe the plan would generate many green industry jobs and help the state get to a zero-carbon future.