Residents of Virginia Beach, in the US State of Virginia, are getting annoyed with the noise pollution reportedly caused by Dominion Energy’s offshore wind turbine project on the sea. The company recently started working on the onshore portion of the installation, which involves underground drilling, and this is what’s getting the people who live and work in the area worked up.
Dominion Energy aims to install 176 turbines off the coast of Virginia
Dominion Energy plans to have 176 wind turbines operating 20 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach by 2026. The ambitious Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Commercial Project will generate clean and renewable energy for the state’s grid and save millions of tons of carbon emissions from entering the atmosphere by replacing fossil fuel generation systems.
Jeremy Slayton, a spokesperson for Dominion Energy, explained how the onshore portion of the installation, which is currently taking place, will be completed with cables from the offshore turbines:
“We come ashore at State Military Reservation, it goes underground through SMR, through Naval Station Oceana, and once we get past Oceana, it transitions to overhead.”
To achieve this, Dominion has to drill into the land to install underground lines leading from the Atlantic Ocean.
Residents are unhappy with the noise pollution caused by onshore drilling operations
Virginia Beach residents are up in arms over the inconvenience caused by Dominion’s drilling activities as they lay the cables that will facilitate the transfer of energy from the sea to land. Patrick McClaughlin, who lives just blocks away from the site, described his feelings on the drilling activity:
“Essentially they’ve created an industrial complex next to a residential community.”
Residents say the situation is not limited to just noise. The drilling, which is apparently being conducted 24 hours a day, is also reportedly causing vibrations and residents are fearful. Deb Higgans, another resident, described how she was traumatized out of her sleep:
“I physically felt the bed moving like there was an earthquake, and I thought, is there an earthquake? Am I losing my mind?”
Some residents claim to have started finding cracks in the walls of their homes or businesses, and they don’t believe it’s coincidental considering the activity going on nearby. John Knight from Virginia Beach has questions he wants answered:
“I’ve just started talking to other neighbors here and probably half of the neighbors I’ve talked to here are seeing new cracks in their houses. It’s making me wonder are we gonna have foundation issues from this? What are the long-term ramifications?”
Some residents of the area stated that they had been unaware that the massive project had even begun until the heard it in the middle of the night. Knight continued:
“In the middle of the night, I felt a big shake, and a mirror in my bathroom splintered into 100 pieces,” Knight said.
A different company called Vortex Bladeless has come up with a way to get around the noise pollution associated with wind energy generation by developing a turbine in the form of a mast that uses vibrational energy.
Dominion Energy is trying to find a compromise to calm residents’ nerves
Dominion Energy’s spokesman Jeremy Slayton explained that the company has permission to work all through the day and night and is monitoring vibration levels to ensure they don’t exceed “normal” levels. Permission has also been granted for the installation of a second monitoring device.
Slayton says that from the company’s end, no unusual levels of vibration have been detected, but management is keeping the locals in mind:
“So far our monitoring has not identified any unusual levels in our work. But we recognize that our neighbors may hear and feel some of our activity.”
Slayton said Dominion held a number of community open house events and meetings and also met people in person. Meetings with civic organizations were held before the construction started. Slayton said that company representatives are willing to engage with the community:
“They can meet them at their house, or they can meet as part of the civic organization to talk them through the construction process.”
However, neighbors reported that all they’ve had are phone calls and would prefer it if representatives presented themselves in person. Resident Julie Brown stated:
“I appreciate that the project is huge, it’s been approved and it’s started. I just feel like we should’ve been made aware of what’s going on.”
The onshore portion of the project in this area is expected to be completed in a few months’ time.
A different wind generation project making waves in the US is a commercial-scale offshore wind energy harvesting plant that went into operation off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts.