Horseless pier set to harness wind

ATLANTIC CITY - It is best remembered for its diving horse and performances by such classic entertainers as Annie Oakley, W.C. Fields, and the Three Stooges.

But for generations, the famed Steel Pier also introduced visitors to products and technology from a dazzling modern age.

General Motors offered its first showcase of the newfangled horseless carriage there. Even the structure was a marvel for its time: Its steel beams extended 1,600 feet from the Boardwalk over a roiling sea, and thousands of Thomas Edison's lightbulbs gave the showplace the look of a fairyland.

If Anthony Catanoso has his way, the Steel Pier will again be a place of spectacle.

Catanoso, who runs the Boardwalk landmark with his three brothers and fellow investors in Atlantic Pier Amusements, hopes to erect the first of three 12-story-high wind turbines three-quarters of the way down the pier by summer. A bill that would overturn a long-standing prohibition on constructing energy-generating stations within 500 feet of the tidal water line was sent to Gov. Christie for his signature last month.

Catanoso envisions the turbines, which would cost $600,000 each, as the centerpiece of an "energy education" center where school groups and others could learn about innovations in green-energy technology before taking a spin on the Ferris wheel and Tilt-a-Whirl.

They could marvel up close at the 121-foot-tall turbines with 35-foot rotors. Positioned to maximize the stiff ocean breezes, the turbines could generate up to 190,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, Catanoso said.

The power - enough for about 30 single-family homes - would be sold to offset the pier's utility costs, though Catanoso acknowledged it could take years before the company recouped the money it spent to build the turbines.

"More important is that we will be sending a message that we all need to start moving down this road toward green energy," Catanoso said. "I think this will do that in a big way."

Catanoso has long mused about ways to harness the wind that, this time of year, cuts across the pier like an icy knife. Atlantic Pier Amusements has leased the location and operated the rides and other attractions there since 1992. Trump Entertainment owns the property, which is opposite the Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort.

"From the day we started working there, we joked that it was so windy on the pier you could power a windmill," Catanoso said. "It always seemed to me to be the perfect spot for it."

His idea picked up steam after the Jersey-Atlantic Wind Farm - five 380-foot turbines in wetlands near the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa - was constructed by the Atlantic County Utilities Authority five years ago.

With the help of State Sen. James Whelan (D., Atlantic), who sponsored the recent legislation, the amusement operator submitted a plan to the administration of Gov. Jon S. Corzine for a coastal project.

The administration agreed to a pilot, but only in Atlantic City. The plan hit a snag when the state Department of Environmental Protection noted a regulation that forbids energy-generating stations so near the high-tide line.

Whelan's bill would allow for wind turbines to be built not just in Atlantic City but also on any existing pier on the New Jersey coast. New piers could not be built specifically as platforms for turbines, and potential turbine operators would have to obtain DEP permits before construction.

Whelan - who acknowledged that some piers, especially in residential areas, would be inappropriate sites - said he believed that resulting projects would demonstrate the viability of wind power in the Garden State.

Tim Dillingham, executive director of the American Littoral Society, said his environmental group at first had concerns about the turbines and their effect on endangered or migrating birds, fish, and other wildlife.

Dillingham was a member of a panel appointed in 2004 by Gov. Richard Codey to study potential locations for alternative-energy projects on the coast.

"We felt it was important to make sure there was a balance between alternative-energy development and the protection of environmental resources that were already there," Dillingham said.

He is in favor of the Whelan legislation, he said, because it would position wind turbines in coastal locales that are already developed.

"What the Steel Pier project will do is provide the opportunity to put alternative energy in a place where a lot of people are going to have the opportunity to see it and, at the same time, not compromise an environmentally sensitive place," Dillingham said.