Alternative Energy | Atlantic City Is Giving Green Energy A Place To Grow On Duck Island

ATLANTIC CITY – City officials have a lot of plans to turnAtlantic City into a leader in green technology. And now, they havea base to focus their initiatives.

Municipal officials have selected a stretch of land, known tomany as Duck Island, to be the city’s first Alternative EnergyDistrict, with plans to possibly construct electricity-generatingfacilities using renewable forms of energy such as solar power,radiation and wind and water.

“For all the years of Atlantic City’s development, this hasnever been considered,” said G. Bruce Ward, the city’s headsolicitor.

The area consists of about 146 acres of upland, wetlands andwetland buffer areas, a parcel that is larger than the city’sformer municipal airport, Bader Field.

The city owns almost the entire tract of both buildable andnon-buildable land. Atlantic City Electric owns about 59 acres andthe city of Pleasantville controls a little less than an acre ofthe parcel.

Ward said Fisherman’s Energy, an offshore wind developer, hasverbally volunteered to perform a free study of the wind patternsalong the island to determine whether the parcel would be anappropriate location for another Atlantic City wind farm.

The Cape May-based company is already competing to be the firstof three companies to build wind turbines off New Jersey’s coast.The company plans to build a small demonstration project 5 milesoff Atlantic City before launching a larger, more ambitious windfarm 11 miles off the coast.

The area has also been rezoned from highway commercial tocoincide with the new energy plans.

Ward, a former city councilman, was the lone voice on councilpushing the need to examine alternative energy possibilities inAtlantic

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