PORTSMOUTH — If you’ve got something to say about SouthCoast Wind’s wish to alter freshwater wetlands as part of its wind energy project, you don’t have much time left. 

The R.I. Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC) is reviewing SouthCoast’s application, and residents may request a hearing on the mater. Anyone who wishes to offer comments or protest the application must attend the scheduled hearing and give sworn testimony.

To request a hearing, do so in writing before Saturday, Dec. 28, and include your mailing address, e-mail and valid contact number. 

E-mail comments/hearing requests to cstaff1crmc.ri.gov, or mail to Coastal Resources Management Council, O.S. Government Center, 4808 Tower Hill Road, Room 116, Wakefield, RI 02879.

SouthCoast’s application for an assent and the freshwater wetlands permit application can be viewed in its entirety here.

SouthCoast Wind (formerly Mayflower Wind) proposes to construct an offshore wind energy generating facility in federal waters approximately 30 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard and 23 miles south of Nantucket within a federal lease area. 

The plan calls for connecting that facility via export cables through federal and state waters and eventually to an electrical substation at Brayton Point in Somerset in order to connect to the regional electric grid. 

To do that, the developers say they would need to construct and maintain two new 20.4-mile submarine high-voltage current (HVDC) power cable bundles and associated communications cables co-located within a single corridor within state waters through the Sakonnet River. 

From there, the cables would run beneath Island Park Beach, up Boyds Lane and Anthony Road, then north before reentering waters in Mt. Hope Bay and making final landfall at Brayton Point, Somerset. 

The state assent application also includes preparation of two landfall work areas for horizontal directional drilling (HDD) pit construction; installation of transition joint bays; installation and operation of an approximately two-mile long underground onshore transmission cable; and associated underground interconnection circuits. 

SouthCoast seeks to alter 76,183 square feet of freshwater wetlands in contiguous areas, according to the application.

While the footprint of the onshore portion of the project is not located within biological wetlands, sections of the route will encroach upon “the 200-foot contiguous area of coastal wetlands, 200-foot contiguous area of river/stream, and 100-foot contiguous area of freshwater wetlands,” according to SouthCoast.

For more information about the project, go here.