Vineyard Offshore’s Rick Musiol cut right to the chase when he and a colleague stepped before the microphone Thursday afternoon to bring Westporters up to speed on a project that many fear could see high-current electric cables come ashore at Horseneck Beach, laid along the bottom of the Westport River, and finally trenched up Route 88 to points north:

“Our intent is to land our project in New London County, Connecticut,” said Musiol, the director of external affairs and community engagement for Vineyard Offshore, which is working to develop the Vineyard Wind II project off the coast of Nantucket.

His colleague, Carrie Hitt, was just as direct:

“We have no indication that we would go anywhere but New London at this point,” she said.

For more than a year, many Westporters have feared that Vineyard Offshore, which is currently building Vineyard Wind I off Martha’s Vineyard and is in the planning stages of Vineyard Wind II, would choose Westport as its preferred landing site for the 1.2 gigawatts of power the wind farm would eventually generate.

There has been good reason for that concern, as a Vineyard Offshore plan on file with the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) lists Westport alongside New London as a potential landing point for that power.

But the two officials, called before the Westport Offshore Wind Advisory Committee Thursday afternoon, said that despite Westport’s inclusion in that plan, market factors and the agreements they’ve signed with grid officials and state governments in Connecticut and elsewhere preclude a Westport landing.

“We filed that some time ago with the federal government,” said Musiol, who noted for context that the wind farm developer was required by federal law to list alternative landing locations.

“If that were to change and we wanted to land our project in any other community” than New London, he said, “we would immediately begin external conversations with that community.”

“Any landing ... would have to go through both the federal and state permitting process,” Hitt added. “Our intent is not to pursue that for Westport.”

Still, a grilling

After they spoke about their plans, members of the nine-seat advisory board, and residents, peppered the offshore wind representatives with questions for more than two hours Thursday afternoon.

They asked about offshore wind’s impact on whales and other marine mammals. They asked about how fin and shellfish would be impacted by the electromagnetic fields onshore cables could emit. They asked about accidents and how the company would respond to pollution, such as that created when a blade at the Vineyard Wind I project collapsed last summer and littered local beaches with thousands of chunks of fiberglass debris. They asked about the future of wind energy under the new Trump administration. And they asked what’s to stop other companies from choosing Westport, even if Vineyard Offshore does indeed end up elsewhere:

“To my knowledge, I don’t know of anyone else coming here,” Hitt said. “I haven’t seen evidence of that; that doesn’t mean other companies aren’t thinking about it (but) I just don’t know. But I can appreciate those concerns.”

Whales

One of the biggest concerns here apart from the impact on Westport’s overall environment is its impact on whales, which have been dying and coming ashore in greater numbers than many residents can remember in years.

Mike Sullivan, who represents the Westport River Watershed Alliance on the board, said “it would be pretty good if some of the arguments that go back and forth ... could settle down and everybody could figure out why we have so many whales washing up here.”

“If we could figure out and address it, I think a lot of issues would go away.”

“I think that work has to continue,” Musiol said. “I think (it’s) clear that the primary challenges that those species encounter are both entanglement and vessel strikes. We know that is a big problem.”

“That’s a PR difficulty for you,” board co-chairman Jake McGuigan said, while others, including board member Christopher Thrasher, wondered aloud whether other factors, including the percussion of pile drivers, are injuring or killing whales.

“Many people in the crowd have been in this community for decades and probably haven’t seen the extent to what they’re seeing wash up on the shores here,” McGuigan said. “That is a very difficult thing for your industry to overcome even if you’re going to say it’s not.”

“I know I continue to hear that boat strikes are the problem. But there is a situation now where developers of offshore wind probably have three times the amount of vessels going back and forth. To say that it’s not necessarily offshore wind .... well it could in fact be development and having boats continuing to go here and there. I’ve told people that there are probably supporters of offshore wind that might have changed their minds when they go down to the beach and see a dead whale.”

“We’re well aware,” Hitt responded. “I think factually right now, all evidence have shown that there have been no whale strikes from our projects at all. I live in Scituate — I have stuff on my beach all the time. It is an issue that we need to address and continue to be vigilant with our monitoring and mitigation strategies.”

Why New London? Why not Westport?

Offshore wind is currently facing a big unknown following President Trump’s executive order last month to temporarily pause permitting and a revaluation of offshore energy.

Both Musiol and Hitt said they don’t know what will become of that, and said they have received little or no direction or insight from the federal government. But putting that uncertainty aside, Hood said, all signs point to New London as a more suitable location:

“When we look at the engineering requirements, the internal requirements, the ability to land, the environmental issues, New London is the place for us to go,” Hitt said. “What could change is we could decide not to build the project (or) for some technical reason” reconsider a different landing location.

“When you are building any energy product, you apply for a queue position with the New England ISO,” which guides how and where the New England electrical grid is modified and maintained.

“Our queue position is in Montville (Connecticut, next door to New London),” she said. “We do not have a queue position in Westport or Massachusetts.”

When asked whether it’s possible that Vineyard Offshore could instead sell its project to another developer, Hitt replied that “we do not have a queue position in Westport or Massachusetts. (Though) companies sell positions ... we do not have one to sell.”

Both Hitt and Musiol said they will continue to stay in touch with Westport officials as the Vineyard Wind II project moves through its federal and state regulatory review. Still, “there’s no intention to change,” Hitt said. “We have no optionality to come here now, from an electrical standpoint. We aren’t advancing here.”