National Grid is gearing up to return to the island in October to continue the reburial of its sea2shore cable. This is the undersea electric transmission cable that connects Block Island to the mainland. Installed in 2016, both the sea2shore cable and the cable connecting the island to Orsted’s Block Island Wind Farm were exposed by waves and shifting sands several years ago. The cables were buried on the island side using a jet plow, while on the mainland side the cable was buried using a horizontal directional drill.The jet plow, while less expensive, was not as effective as the horizontal drill in deeply burying the cable. In fact, the cable on the Block Island side was only buried to a depth of four feet in places, but was still approved by the Coastal Resource Management Council.Beginning in October 2020, National Grid and Orsted worked together using a horizontal directional drill to make tunnels from just north of the Beach Pavilion, under the dunes, under the sea floor, and out to an underwater pit off the shore. At places, this tunnel is 30 to 40 feet under the ocean floor.Crews built 3500-foot conduit pipes to snake through the
