Burnside Avenue Resident Supports Deepwater Wind, Narragansett Cable Placement

To the Editor,

There’s been a lot of chatter lately from the same few members of our community about the Deepwater Wind cable project. I thought I’d add my voice to the dialogue, as someone who lives on Burnside Avenue, one of the streets the Block Island Wind Farm cable will run below.

I support renewable energy, I support the Block Island Wind Farm, and I support the cable. Even if it runs below my street.

For all the hyperbole out there, let’s remember: This cable is no different than all the other underground cables that already run beneath our roads. The installation will be just like any new phone or cable TV wire. Cables just like this one are already below beaches on the Cape and Nantucket. It will have to pass multiple levels of permitting, and the public will have the chance to weigh in at every juncture.

Deepwater Wind listened to the Town of Narragansett when they urged the company to bury the cable and to avoid Narragansett Town Beach. I think the new route is a perfectly suitable one – The cable will land underneath Scarborough at “Stinky Beach.” Surely a cable buried 6 feet below the sand is no more disruptive than the ugly storm-water pipes already there?

I think the scare tactics and the personal attacks against Deepwater Wind and their CEO are unfair. The company’s talked with me and my neighbors, they’ve attended public meetings, they’ve talked to our local reporters, and they’ve posted all their permitting documents on their website for all to see.

It’s time for all of us South County residents to think beyond our own self-interest. Consider your neighbors on Block Island, who pay some of the highest electricity costs in the country. Consider what this project will mean to them, and to the rest of Rhode Island. We’re a community that cares about the environment – let’s show it by getting behind a project that could be the first offshore wind farm in the country.

Rhode Island has a real chance to lead here, and we shouldn’t swayed by the hyperbole.

Kevin M. Hunt
Burnside Avenue, Narragansett