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NEW LONDON – The Connecticut Port Authority received a permit to fill about 7 acres of water between the two piers in New London on Thursday – a key, long-awaited piece of the $235 million redevelopment of the State Pier into an offshore wind hub.
The Connecticut Port Authority had been expecting the Army Corps of Engineers permit to be issued for months. The authority had agreed to a provision in its contract with the Eversource/Ørsted offshore wind partnership that would have allowed the companies to withdraw their funding for the project if the permit wasn’t in hand by Aug. 31.
That deadline was extended multiple times, with port authority officials publicly stating each time they believed the permit would be issued imminently, and the offshore wind partnership reiterating its commitment to funding the project.
In response to questions about the timeline of the project, Andrew Lavigne, spokesman for the port authority, said updates on the project and permit would be discussed at the Tuesday meeting of the authority’s board of directors.
The permit allows the port authority to demolish parts of the State Pier, dredge areas around the pier, fill about 7.4 acres of water to create a new wharf, and build a “living shoreline” on the property as part of its development into a hub for shipping equipment out to the sites of their planned 704 MW Revolution Wind project off the coast of Rhode Island and 924 MW Sunrise Wind projects off Long Island.
As a condition of the permit, the work cannot take place between Feb. 1 and May 31 when it produces “greater than minimal turbidity or sedimentation” – including dredging and demolition – in order to protect a winter flounder spawning and egg development habitat.