For many months now, crews contracted by Orsted and National Grid have been busy working on the reburial of a portion of their two undersea electric transmission cables, one that goes out to the wind farm, and one that connects Block Island to the mainland. The cables were not originally installed at the desired depth of six feet, and had become exposed in areas due to shifting sands.
While workers were visible constructing a 3,500-foot conduit that stretched the entire length of Crescent Beach from Baby Beach to Scotch Beach, what else they were doing has been somewhat of a mystery.
Islanders and visitors have witnessed two liftboats, the M/V Ram XV and the M/V Ram Vll, off the shore of Fred Benson Town Beach and other support vessels in Old Harbor, as well as tons of equipment, supplies, and trailers in the parking lot of the beach.
It turns out that crews from JT Cleary have been busy drilling a tunnel under the sea floor from just north of the Beach Pavilion, under the dunes, and out to a pit near the liftboats. Using a process known as horizontal drilling, workers drilled the tunnel, expanding it with
