Joe Murphy of National Grid joined the Town Council via Zoom on February 16 and reported that the cable reburial project will begin, again, in April. National Grid’s sea2shore cable, which runs from Block Island to the mainland, was not buried to the recommended depth of six feet, and subsequently became exposed near Fred Benson Town Beach. To rebury the cable, a tunnel was dug deep under the ocean floor, conduit was put through the tunnel, and new cable was run through the conduit. The new cable now has to be spliced together with the old, both on land near the beach pavilion, and out in the ocean. The new section of cable will bypass the exposed cable section, which will then be removed.Orsted, the company that owns the wind farm and the cable that runs from the turbines to Block Island, performed a similar operation for its section of exposedcable last year.Murphy described the “significant success” the company had achieved on its last visit in the fall of 2021, clearing the blocked conduit and pulling the new cablethrough. The conduit had been placed under the sea floor back in the spring of 2021, but somehow became clogged
