Image courtesy of Atlantic Offshore Terminals.
Business Manager Christopher Erikson recently had an opinion article published on SILive.com supporting New York’s ambitious climate and energy goals – including 9 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2035 – while stressing the need for union jobs and more investment, specifically at the Arthur Kill Terminal on Staten Island. This site received a federal grant in 2022 to begin construction, but it suffered a setback when it was not included in the State’s most recent round of funding toward renewable energy projects.
“Offshore wind is exactly the kind of high-growth, sustainable, and essential industry union workers are made to support,” Business Manager Erikson writes. Click here to read his op-ed. “We urge the governor to direct her agencies to give Arthur Kill Terminal the funding it, and we, deserve.”
Arthur Kill Terminal is one of a few sites in New York that has been proposed as a staging location for the assembly of wind turbines, nacelles, and towers that will be installed in offshore wind farms in the New York Bight (waters between Long Island and New Jersey) and potentially up and down the U.S. East Coast. This would translate into hundreds if not thousands of jobs for IBEW members and other unions for years to come. Unfortunately, none of these sites are operational yet, causing New York’s first operational utility-scale offshore wind farm, South Fork Wind, to use machinery assembled out of state. Another round of offshore wind solicitation awards by the State is expected to be announced early in the new year.
