tall tower in place of the 1939 New Market Building and to move the 1909 Tin Bui lding closer to the proposed Pier 17 shopping mall. At the meeting, the non-profit group Save Our Seaport (SOS) instead advocated for a more "community friendly" use for the site, which would include expanding South Street Seaport Museum and transferring control of water-based activities to them. SOS is also pushing for a public market, plus allowing space for more school and community faci lities. HHC has presented plans th at would rransform the area, including the historic district, into a shopping, dining, and entertainment area. Of particular concern to many is the large tower, which would change the characteristic of the neighborhood and, specifically, would block the current unobstructed views of the Brooklyn Bridge. S. FOSKETTA, VIA WI KI PEDIA COMMONS, CC BY
South Street Seaport, New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver's representative explained that the City of New York has "agreed to put those plans on hold and to allow for a new planning process that will come up with an alternate, community-minded plan for the Seaport." A task force is being created to examine alternative development plans that will rely heavily on community input. (For updates, check the Save Our Seaport website at www.saveourseaport. wordpress.com, and also the website for Just Press Pause, another advocacy group working to halt HHC plans, www.just presspause.org.) .. . The Merchant Marine Act of 1920, a.k.a. the Jones Act, is creating another problem for the beleaguered offshore wind farm company, Cape Wind, which has been trying to build a 130-turbine wind farm in Nantucket Sound for more than a decade ... and the City of New Bedford, Massachusetts, might have a solution. It seems that the Jones Act would prevent the company from using foreign-built vessels in the process of building the
SEA HISTORY 146, SPRING 2014
foundations for the turbines offshore and installing them. Because Cape Wind would be the first of its kind in the United States, the specialized vessels the industry typically uses in established offshore wind farms around the world are not yet manufactured in this country. The Jones Act dictates that the transshipment of materials by water between "points in the United States" be restricted to American-built and -manned vessels. Because the Act uses the word "point" and not "port," a fixed structure offshore (but not past the Continental Shelf) falls in this category. Building the foundation and installing each turbine includes driving massive piles into the seaBoor, transporting extremely large and h eavy turbines to the site, and then using cranes as large as 300 feet tall to install the them . In Europe, offshore wind turbines are installed with the use of purpose-built barges that jack up out of the water when they are driving piles into the bedrock. One solution, according to Cape Wind, would be to use the still-to-be-completed 28-acre New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal, which was designed to support the construction, assembly, and deployment of offshore wind projects. At present, Cape Wind's federal permit lists Quonset Point in Rhode Island as the staging area for operations, and the company would have to have a revised plan filed and approved by the federal Bureau of Offshore Energy Management first. The New Bedford marine terminal will be equipped with a mobile or "walking" crane, which will allow the turbines to be assembled on land and placed on a regular barge, hence avoiding the problem of the specialty barges that are not avai lable here. In the meantime, the New Jerseybased Weeks Marine, Inc., is developing new vessels that can handle the unique needs of offshore wind turbine site construction. C learly, all parties involved view clean energy as the industry of the future . In fact, CNN technology reporter Arion McNicoll listed the offshore wind farm as one of "coolest technologies" for 2014. ''Alongside power from volcanoes, waves, biomass and the sun, wind power is set to become a significant alternative energy source in 2014." Finally, in related news, late in 2013 Cape Wind signed a contract with Siemens
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