It's WINDSday | May 22, 2024

Celebrating the Power of Wind, Clean Energy and a Green Environment

The 708-foot-long Orion and its crew are ready to install the first six monopiles of the 176-turbine Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, some 27 miles out in the Atlantic off Virginia Beach. Once it begins, its 5,000-ton crane will set each foundation piece into place deep in the seabed, starting in the western quadrant of the 113,000-acre site. When the first half dozen are securely in place, the Orion will return to Portsmouth Marine Terminal to pick up six more of the approximately 270-ton tubes. Another eight were to arrive at PMT overnight. 

There are six other ships in the lease area, including the Atlantic Oceanic, which will deploy a "double big bubble curtain" to reduce noise. Before departing our harbor, it spent some time at Lyon Shipyard in Norfolk, one of several companies already benefiting from offshore wind coming to Hampton Roads.



Also out in the water is the Go Freedom, a "protected species observation" vessel monitoring marine life, a high priority for the region and developer Dominion Energy, as you can read below. 

Denmark-based CS WIND, formerly Bladt Industries, is busy building essential equipment for Dominion Energy's CVOW wind farm.

Some have arrived, including six bright yellow CS WIND Transition Pieces (TP's) that will top the monopiles. The accompanying picture shows some TP's, peeking above 30 monopiles on the pier.



And CS WIND is also outfitting the first of three 880 MW offshore substations (pictured above), which will aggregate the electricity CVOW will generate before it's cabled ashore in Virginia Beach.

CS WIND designs, procures, and manufactures steel structures and jackets for the substations in partnership with Semco Maritime in Esbjerg, Denmark. In 1991, the world's first offshore wind farm was built off Esbjerg. Here in Virginia, we're learning and buying from the best. 

Growing up in Maryland, Jacqueline (Jackie) Bort recalls watching National Geographic specials on marine mammals, primarily whales. "I guess I got hooked then." Oh, did she.

Jackie studied their habits and habitats as an undergrad and in graduate school at UNC Wilmington. Google her and you'll find at least ten scholarly articles on topics like "North American right whale (Eubalaena glacialis) acoustic activity on a potential wintering ground in the Central Coast of Maine."

You might call her a whale geek, which is why she was such a valuable member of the Stranding Program at the Virginia Aquarium and is now a civilian deputy program manager for the Navy's Marine Species Monitoring Program for the Atlantic based in Norfolk.

"The greatest threat to whales, including the endangered right whale, is ship strikes," says Bort. "We are obligated by law to do visual surveys from air and sea, conduct passive acoustic monitoring, biopsy sampling, long-term tagging, and more to track whales and try to prevent collisions," adds Bort, who has become a go-to expert in Hampton Roads.

"Right whales aren't dying of natural causes like disease," she notes. "Fishing gear is a big problem in New England, but the collisions in the Atlantic where they migrate and the Chesapeake Bay where they feed are the real culprits." She says NOAA is investigating what hit a right whale found floating 50 miles off our coast in March. "That one was an active mom, and there are less than a hundred left. It's concerning."

Slowing down vessels is one way to help, but it's not foolproof. "Right whales are huge but also hard to spot at times," says Jackie. She is aware that offshore wind skeptics accuse that industry of causing deaths, but Jackie says there is no proof.

Dominion Energy has strict protocols, says the utility's John Larson, who addressed a recent Lynnhaven River Now event that Bort attended. That includes no monopile installations during migration season (November-May), using the aforementioned "bubble curtains" to reduce underwater noise, and stopping all vessel traffic when there are whales in the vicinity. "We have learned a lot from the two test turbines we erected in 2020," says Larson. "Not one bird, for instance, has died out there due to the blades spinning."



Between the government, the fishing and shipping industries, pleasure boaters, the Navy, and knowledgeable observers like Jackie, there are many eyes on the Atlantic. Hers are two of the keenest, and she has the attention and respect of business, government, the military, and environmentalists. Keep up the good work, Ms. Bort. 

Everett Banks, who played basketball at Norfolk State, and Terry Sears, who bartended at Kingsmill, have found each other in Hampton. The winners are the patrons of Terry's Stillwater Tavern across from the Air and Space Center.

"I started this place in 2012 and have expanded over time, specializing in burgers, wings, my popular crab soup plus games," says Terry, including the profitable skill ones the state now bans. "But I am hoping to convert a room into one where we can do charitable gaming for a local non-profit."

But in the meantime, mega-entrepreneur "Banks," as he is known, is a one-man programming machine. "I book comics, bands, hip-hop performers, and other artists into the space, and we are also doing line dancing, paint-and-sip parties, and karaoke every Thursday."

Follow Stillwater Tavern on Facebook or Instagram, and Banks on Instagram. He's constantly creating. 

Be on the Sandler Center Plaza at 6pm on June 12th for Ynot WINDSday, featuring WINDSdays' official showband, Brasswind, the drawing for a free trip to Italy, and to meet our first WINDSday Schools.

CLICK HERE to buy your raffle tickets to support Habitat for Humanity SHR.

Admission to Ynot WINDSday, and parking at Town Center, are free.  

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