Ocean Gate Wind Turbines Shut Down In “Good Faith”

Residents in Ocean Gate are able to get some peaceful sleep after the Borough has decided to shutdown the towns wind turbines overnight while it decides the future of the generators.

Ocean Gate is doing a voluntary shutdown of the wind turbines between 10pm and 7am .

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The controversial turbines have been the subject of several complaints from residents over the noise and are currently under investigation by the Ocean County Health Department over noise  violations.

The Health Department conducted recordings around the turbines and claimed they violated New Jersey Administrative Code, Title 7, Chapter 29, which is considered a “minor violation”.

Ocean Gate wanted to get a written response to several unanswered questions from the Health Department, however Borough Attorney James Gluck says he has been in contact with the Board of Health Counsel, and in a written response, was told the information would be arriving any day.

In anticipation of the results Gluck says the Borough is deciding to act in good faith and shut down night time operations of the turbines while they evaluate the OCHD’s results and decide whether improvement can or need to be made. However he doesn’t see the move as an admission of guilt.

“I see it as the borough continuing to operate in good faith, to listen to its citizens that have come forth at the meetings, to hear their complaints, and listen to the Ocean County Health Department and review their data and try to do everything they can to review their data.”

The turbines will be switched off immediately and remain quiet at night until the issue is resolved. He says there will be some loss of power generated from the turbines, however he isn’t sure how much.

“Only time will tell with additional data that we’re going to bring in, what power was lost or what potential for capturing power was lost during that period.”

He does note the nights in summer tend to be calm so it shouldn’t be too much.