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Vineyard Wind draft report released

"The company remains squarely on track to place equipment orders and start construction in 2019," said
The company needs to begin construction of its 800-megawatt wind farm next year because 2019 is the final year of a federal investment tax credit program that was a component in the company's successful bid to sell electricity to three electricity distributors in
By remaining on schedule, the company can maximize the value of the tax credit, "creating
Top executives with Vineyard Wind expressed optimism in late September about completion dates for the offshore project after a
Stephens said he doesn't know where the first construction will occur but he said most likely onshore.
Available online before Friday's official release, the draft report is a 500-page analysis of the potential environmental, social, economic, historic, and cultural effects that could come from the construction, operation, maintenance and ultimate decommissioning of the offshore wind energy facility 14 miles south of
The
The draft report lays out a grid of negligible, minor, moderate and major negative and positive effects of the proposed project and alternatives, first described in raw form without any mitigation measures that Vineyard Wind is also proposing. The major negative effects in the report are for commercial fishing and for-hire recreational fishing, with a special mention of fishermen in
Although a final decision by the state Energy Facilities Siting Board is still due in April, Vineyard Wind has said it intends now to land its high-voltage cable at Covell Beach in
When reached by phone on Tuesday,
"If we haven't heard of anything yet then there probably is nothing major of note, other than everything is going in the right direction," Janiunas said.
Generally, in the draft report's grid of unmitigated effects, water quality impacts are described as minor, and largely attributed to vessel discharges and sediment suspension, with a net benefit identified over the life of the project.
Both
"There's nothing that I'm particularly concerned about, certainly not with Covells Beach," said Beedenbender, whose district includes the beach itself. "We should all be concerned about the substation."
Other commercial fishermen, in
"We have not received the draft (environmental impact statement) from Vineyard Wind,"
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