Saving Seafood

Maryland board OKs taller wind turbines off Ocean City

August 24, 2020 — The Maryland Public Service Commission on Thursday approved a power company’s request to build wind turbines off Ocean City that are more than 200 feet taller than had originally been permitted.

The decision came after Ocean City officials, including Mayor Rick Meehan, had testified that the new, larger turbine design chosen by Skipjack Offshore Energy for the wind projects would ruin views of the horizon from the beach, thus affecting the town’s crucial tourism industry.

They added that the new turbines, three times taller than the tallest building in Ocean City, would require aerial hazard navigation lights, which the previous turbines did not, and contended that values of beachfront properties would be adversely affected.

Town officials wanted the commission to order Skipjack to move the turbines 33 miles offshore, citing a wind farm development off Long Island, New York, that is that far out, and thus out of sight.

Read the full story at WTOP

Ocean City’s effort to keep windmills far offshore fails as Maryland delegates reject proposal

March 13, 2018 — Maryland House of Delegates committee on Friday rejected a proposal that called for prohibiting wind farms from being built within 30 miles of Ocean City’s coast, a blow to the resort town’s effort to preserve beach vistas.

But town officials aren’t done fighting.

Ocean City officials have said that the sight of windmills on the horizon could dampen tourism spending and send visitors to the Jersey Shore or Virginia Beach. Two offshore wind developers are planning to build turbines off Maryland’s coast, after state regulators last year approved ratepayer subsidies for the projects that could cost typical utility customers $1 a month.

Mayor Rick Meehan said he had expected the proposed legislation to fail as lawmakers have fought for years over whether to allow wind farms off Maryland’s coast until the General Assembly in 2013 approved a process for constructing them that still has broad support. Meehan and other town officials are now turning their attention to efforts at the federal level, and potentially a second state-level review, to press regulators to keep wind turbines as far from beaches as possible.

“We support wind energy. We support clean energy,” Meehan said. “We just don’t want to see it at the detriment to Ocean City, our property owners and our economy.”

Read the full story at the Baltimore Sun