Demand Responsible Governance & Extension to Comment Period for Review of Atlantic Shores 1 & 2!

The Bureau Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) issued ONE Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for TWO offshore wind (OSW) power plants. Atlantic Shores 1 & Atlantic Shores 2 are combined in one DEIS that contains thousands of pages for review and hundreds of references to evaluate. BOEM provides the bare minimum of only 45 days for the public to review, study, and submit comments about these two massive projects. This short timeframe flies in the face of good governance and due process.  Consider the details of these two projects: 
  

• Located 8.7 miles off New Jersey  
• 200 wind turbines, 102,124 acres of ocean
• 4 “large” offshore substations nearly 20-stories high, OR 10 offshore substations over 16 stories high with potential for “once-through” cooling systems that will discharge billions of gallons of hot water into ocean per day.  
• 2 onshore substations in Howell and Egg Harbor Townships
• 8 transmission cables with landfall in Atlantic City and/or Sea Girt, New Jersey  
• 1,025 miles of high voltage cables emitting electromagnetic fields and heat into the seafloor and ocean  
• Permanent & temporary meteorological stations & buoys  
• Project 1 proposes to produce 1,510 MW. The MW for Project 2 has not been determined.
• Simultaneously, the public also must review thousands of pages for the Final Environmental Impacts Statement (FEIS) for the nearby Ocean Wind 1 for impacts by the proposed activities. 

These projects will have serious consequences for the public use and enjoyment of the ocean, as well as significant consequences to marine life. Ample time is needed to carefully and comprehensively review these projects. People who will be impacted most directly by these projects earn their living along the shore during the summer season. Asking for their focus on the Atlantic Shores’ DEIS simultaneously with Ocean Wind 1’s FEIS, as well as other OSW projects, rules, and permits in the region, is unjust. WE, the undersigned, demand that the period for the public to review and comment on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for Atlantic Shores 1 and 2 be extended by 6 months: