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Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind
CVOW and Croatan...
The CCL is in communication with the office of communications at Dominion Energy to keep the residents of Croatan updated on the CVOW project and its impact on the neighborhood. Dominion has agreed to send periodic updates on relation to the work being done at Camp Pendleton.
Contact information
Dominion Questions...
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Carrie Rose Pace - Senior Communications Specialist
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Email - carrie.s.rose.pace@dominionenergy.com
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Office phone - 804-771-4878
Daily updates will be posted on the Croatan Beach Facebook page and Nextdoor.
UPDATES
Oct. 22.2024 -
This is an update about the sound panels previously mentioned for additional noise mitigation during remaining CVOW construction at the Rifle Range. The sound panels may arrive as early as this afternoon in the Croatan Beach Public Parking Lot. The sound engineers recommended this placement to best buffer you from site sounds as we continue to shore the sandy soil with sheet piles at the Rifle Range .The panels will take approximately a week to install and position according to the sound engineer’s plan. We anticipate the panels will remain up for about four months. You will see on this sketch below that the northernmost row of parking will be temporarily unavailable. We coordinated this plan with both the City and SMR. As previously mentioned, additional mobile sound panels will also be deployed at our work sites around specific equipment that may produce noticeable noise, such as hydrovac trucks or certain generators. We thank you for your patience and understanding as we complete this project safely and on time. We are continuously improving our construction practices and thank you for your feedback.
Oct. 18.2024 -
We are returning to work at the State Military Reservation (SMR) on Thursday, October 17, 2024.
We continue to improve our construction practices to minimize potential impacts to neighbors, including:
- Using equipment that operates at measurable lower noise levels
The machine for the remainder of shoring (sheet piling) work will be the “ABI” unit that produces a lower noise level than the unit used in August and early September that led to neighbor noise complaints.
- Deploying mobile sound panels around equipment to muffle noise such as around hydrovacuum excavator trucks.
-Installing sound panels on the north side of the work area to buffer residents from site sounds.
What activities to expect in the coming weeks:
-On 10/17 – equipment deliveries as we remobilize at SMR.
- Excavators working (daytime) at the Rifle Range – excavating the underground conduit paths between the east and west sides of the field, and excavating the rest of the pit at the Transition Joint Bay #6-9.
- Concrete truck deliveries (daytime) to the Rifle Range – occasional safety beeping may be heard when trucks back up (we were not permitted to swap to the “whoosh” alert on these delivery units).
- Shoring (temporary sheet piling) – using the ABI machine
My next Public Office Hours are scheduled Thursday, October 24 between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. - CVOW Office Hours (link with address below). You are welcome to stop by anytime for individual assistance.
August 29th - There was a Community meeting hosted by Dominion at the Aquarium to discuss the CVOW progress. Here is the presentation - click here
July 15th - Click here to read the update
July 10th - this is in regards to Dominions acquisition of the Avangrid lease off of Sandbridge ...Even though we anticipate the deal to acquire the CVOW-South lease area will close at the end of 2024, we have no project timeline yet to share for potential generation in the 2030s. Public engagement will be a slow roll, and our first priority is simply to listen and understand what matters to Sandbridge (the potential cable landing site) and the other communities in the study area along the potential route options to Corporate Landing. We are going to study the route options and perform our own analysis.
June 6th -
As requested, the EMF data for CVOW is attached – from offshore infrastructure to onshore underground and overhead power lines. These boards were shared at the preconstruction open houses in fall 2023. We include data on the EMF levels produced by proposed facilities in all applications submitted to the Virginia State Corporation Commission. Neighbors can also review the CVOW EMF calculations from our 2021 SCC filing documents here, beginning on PDF page 37 (IV. Health Aspects of Electromagnetic Fields). The EMF information continues through PDF page 56, including references. In the SCC’s final order, they concluded that the lines do not pose additional health risks to the public.
Electricity is an essential part of our modern way of life. Every item that generates, transmits or uses electricity produces both electric and magnetic fields, otherwise known as EMF. Dominion Energy understands that community members may have health concerns related to power lines and the associated EMF levels, and we stay up to date on the most current academic EMF research. Like other utilities, Dominion Energy relies on information from state, federal and international health and scientific agencies. Since the late 1970s, scientists around the world have conducted thousands of studies looking for relationships between EMF exposure and possible adverse health effects. To date, none of these organizations have found any causality between potential EMF exposures and long-term adverse health effects.
Resources: EMF | Dominion Energy
Informational, interactive EMF portal: Dominion Energy: Electric and Magnetic Fields and Health
Quick Generation Facts:
Offshore wind turbine field (176 Wind Turbine Generators) will generate a maximum total output of 2.6 GW
Although we will be the largest offshore wind project in the US once operational, we are not the largest in the world. There are other similar size projects operational in Europe.
CVOW will provide enough power for up to 660,000 homes
Like onshore generation facilities (which include various generation types like coal, gas, nuclear, hydro, solar, etc.), we send that energy on the grid via cables/lines. CVOW uses both overhead wires and underground cables to get the power from the offshore wind farm to the onshore electric grid.
This is a large generator to help us meet the growing power needs of our customers. CVOW helps us provide the reliable, affordable, and increasingly clean energy that powers your every day.
May 16th -We are currently returning to SMR (State Military Reservation formerly Camp Pendleton) to resume construction. We are returning the equipment that we had to remove, including cranes, excavators, trucks, etc. Neighbors may hear safety beeps and equipment moving around the site this week. The cranes are also being reassembled. We are implementing many of the additional mitigation measures discussed with the community, such as sound walls, sound buffer blankets, and equipment and lighting adjustments. Work is planned to occur during daylight hours through the end of May. I’ll update you when 24-7 operations are expected to resume this summer. First Activities - Weather permitting, we plan to do the following on these dates:
Install mobile sound panels as-needed to mitigate sound from smaller equipment.
Resume TJB (Transition Joint Bay area at the SMR)) excavation as early as today.
Resume pile driving at the TJB (on the west end of the Rifle Range) as early as Thursday, May 16. This includes a crane installing steel piles and sheet piles in the TJB. A sound buffer blanket will be wrapped around the crane’s hammer and the pile being installed to muffle sound.
Begin material staging activities at the Direct Pipe pit on Tuesday, May 21. This includes installing new sound walls in several locations to prepare for Direct Pipe work to come this summer.
During the next week, stage materials for HDD (Horizontal Directional Drilling) under Lake Rudee/General Booth at east Bells Road and behind Headquarters Road (SMR). (This activity will be much farther from Croatan than HDD Lake Christine was, but we will include updates for awareness.)
- March 25th am -just received an update on progress during the weekend:
Saturday: The team successfully used the custom tool.Sunday: The team made adjustments to the pipe underground.Overnights: The drill rig continues to run at the lowest possible RPM to hold the pipe’s position. The sound levels are being monitored in real time on both sides of Lake Christine to ensure the noise levels remain acceptable at night.Today: The team will continue pipe adjustments and periodic hammering activities.
- March 22th -The drill rig continues to operate, and ran at the lowest possible RPM overnight to hold the pipe’s position until day shift.
The hammering activity, which occurs periodically during day shift, is making progress with the pipe.However, we are currently preparing a custom part onsite that we anticipate will further help us finish the pull back asap.The hydrovac truck and drill rig continue to operate with sound buffer panels in place.We want to resolve this issue quickly, and thank neighbors for their patience. This is the last step of the pull back phase, with a relatively short distance remaining."
UPDATES
- April 17th - The offshore foundation materials are arriving at Portsmouth Marine Terminal, and are then loaded for transport to the offshore wind lease area for installation (May-Oct). The vessel scheduled for this year’s installation period is the Orion. Beach residents may be able to see the vessel on its way out of port to the lease area 27 miles east, but that’s about it. I’ll let you know if I learn anything differently from the offshore team.We continue to post mariner updates with all the vessels supporting CVOW – both nearshore by the beach to the offshore lease area – online here: Dominion Energy | CVOW Mariners and Fisheries (coastalvawind.com).
- April 3rd - Beginning as early as April 8, 2024 until the end of July, nighttime work and lane closures can be expected on Oceana Boulevard between Harpers Road and Bells Road. We will install underground infrastructure in duct bank that crosses Oceana Boulevard north of the intersection with Harpers Road. This work will progress across the road in stages to minimize traffic impacts.Work hours are from 7pm to 5am Sunday night through Saturday morning.
-At least one lane will be open in both directions of Oceana Boulevard. All lanes will be open during the day. As crews safely secure the work zone with steel plates, traffic stoppages lasting up to 15 minutes are possible.
For everyone's safety, please follow posted signs, flagger instructions, and speed limits. - The CCL has been informed that the work at Camp Pendleton will pause from April 15th - May 15th due to military needs
- March 26th pm - We are done with the percussive/hammering activity at the Direct Pipe pit for today. We plan to finish the last percussive/hammering activity at the pit tomorrow by lunchtime. This is still prep work for the summer Direct Pipe work planned.
- March 26th am - We successfully completed the pull back last night of the last HDD under Lake Christine. Activity today by the lake will be noticeably lower. We have minimal hydrovac trucks in use today.
However, neighbors closer to the Direct Pipe worksite (Rifle Range near the beach side) will notice periodic daytime percussive sounds. We are moving some pipes in the pit to prepare for Phase 2 Direct Pipe work planned this summer. The percussive sounds should be of short duration.
- March 25th pm - the pull back is underway. The efforts previously explained worked, and we are making good progress on the pull back of the pipe.
Because the pipe pull back is actively in progress again, the team will proceed with the pull back operation until complete. This means that there will be active work overnight, rather than setting the equipment on hold like recent nights. To minimize overnight noise, we are using the sound buffer panels and reducing to the minimum hydrovac trucks necessary.
