Encountering Blue State Wind Resistance

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There has been election-year movement in a blue-as-the-sky state, but not in the direction you’d think.

Just about this time a year ago, I told you about a massive off-shore wind development that is planned for the Maryland coast off Ocean City and would eventually feed 2GW of power to Delmarva households.

Sonar surveying had already begun, and what seemed to be the resultant effects of that pounding on the bottom horrified local residents.

…Off the coasts of Maryland and Delaware, one of the few projects Ørsted still has going forward has starting its sonar surveying. The Skipjack 1 and Skipjack 2 wind farms are going to be plopped down square in the middle of something known as a “horseshoe crab reserve.”

Both Skipjack 1 & 2 are located in the center of the Carl Shuster Jr. Horseshoe Crab Reserve with US Wind off the coast of Ocean City, MD in the lower quadrant of the marine protected area. This MPA was created to protect the current population of crabs.

……Saturday, Oct, 7th we were made aware of a massive horseshoe crab beaching. This was highly concerning to us because of the surveying being done directly off the site of the stranding. The surveying is being done on behalf of US Wind and Orsted via the vessel Shacklford.

Where local opposition to the projection had been fractured, this seemed to be the galvanizing moment. People sat up and paid attention, not just to the local activists who’d been sounding the alarm (like our very own TurnMDRed here in the comments), but to seaside merchants who’d been saying, “Have you looked at the drawings? Do you see what the view from the beach will be?” and the assorted fishing groups, both pleasure and professional.

Merchants, mayors, fisherfolk, activists, and concerned citizens started banding together, sharing information, and educating themselves on permitting and environmental requirements in order to birddog every step of the process for errors or obvious favors done to developers.

And the chances of favored status were pretty good, as the governors. of those states were all Democratic, big Green grift advocates, and had seen the writing on the wall concerning the negative shift in citizen sentiment.

In September of last year, they sent a pleading letter to POTATUS to bail them out of cost overruns already threatening to swamp their projects,

Six Atlantic shore Governors are begging the Feds to bail them out of a huge looming offshore wind cost overrun. They sent Biden a joint letter asking for a list of relief measures ranging from tax breaks to revenue sharing.

The outcome is far from clear but my guess is the largess is unlikely to appear, especially given the ongoing federal budget battles. Maybe later. However most of the requests also likely require major regulatory changes, which could take years. They might even take legislation which could be never.

But the need is urgent as the offshore developers are demanding immediate power price increases of around 50% lest they leave for better opportunities elsewhere. They can do this because offshore wind is a global boom. Even mid-income developing countries like Indonesia are talking big offshore numbers.

This August, as the final decision from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) neared about buying off on the project and foes marshaled their arguments in the event it was approved, the mayor of Ocean City lamented how the massive ugly turbines would forever change the beachfront community, for all the developers talk of “jobs” and “clean-energy.” He warned the city wasn’t willing to lose that without a fight.

The beauty of a sunrise at the beach is something to be savored — Ocean City, Maryland, says it’s worth fighting for, and plans to sue the federal government if the U.S. gives the OK to build an offshore wind farm.

Mayor Rick Meehan, at an Aug. 5 city council meeting, said the town has hired a law firm, and will join several local co-plaintiffs in suing the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), if it issues a federal permit to US Wind, to construct the wind project.

Ocean City has opposed the proposed wind farm project for several years. At the end of July, BOEM released its final environmental impact statement for the project, which the government said could support an estimated 2,679 jobs annually over seven years.

“The turbines will be as close as between 10.7 and 10.9 miles off our coast,” Meehan told the council. “The turbines will be at a minimum, 938 feet tall — if they were built on land, they would be the tallest structures in the state of Maryland.”

According to the town, each turbine would need to be lit with flashing red lights, which would also be visible from the beach, stretching the length of Ocean City.

I can’t say I blame him. They’re ghastly on the horizon.

In September, the city and citizens got the bad news – the feds gave the massive project the go-ahead, local input, horseshoe crabs, and objections be damned.

The federal government announced Thursday that it has given final approval to a proposed wind energy development off the coast of Maryland — a significant milestone in a process that has dragged on for more than a decade.

US Wind’s Maryland offshore wind project, as approved, is expected to generate over 2 gigawatts of renewable energy for the Delmarva Peninsula, enough to power more than 718,000 homes. The federal government has estimated that the development and construction phases of the project could support almost 2,680 jobs annually over the next seven years, which is when the wind installation is expected to be fully operational.

The lease area is approximately 8.7 nautical miles off the coast of Ocean City and approximately 9 nautical miles from Sussex County, Delaware, at its closest points to shore.

The Maryland Offshore Wind Project consists of three planned phases, which include the proposed installation of up to 114 wind turbine generators, up to four offshore substation platforms, one meteorological tower, and up to four offshore export cable corridors. Two phases, known as MarWin and Momentum Wind, already have offshore renewable energy certificates from the state.

Little did the federal government anticipate it would take less than two months for Ocean City and its partners in protest to file a lawsuit to derail the project. Which is what they did two days ago.

The united group has taught themselves well and is taking it to the feds on a regulatory minutia-wise (not emotional “save the whales”) basis, too. Sharp eyes have reviewed every scrap of paperwork, data, and form submitted and required for the project’s approval and found numerous instances where requirements were not met or even completed.

Their lawsuit would force the government to redo the proposal.

The mayor and city council of this popular tourist destination are the lead plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit intended to roll back the approval of an 80,000-acre wind energy project to be located about 10.7 miles off the Maryland coast.

The plaintiffs in the litigation include several neighboring towns and counties, as well as sportfishing groups, hotels, amusement parks and other providers of tourism amenities.

Their 92-page lawsuit claims the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management violated a number of federal statutes and related regulations in approving the construction and operations plan for the project, which is being developed by U.S. Wind.

The alleged wrongdoing includes violations of the Administrative Procedure Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the Coastal Zone Management Act, and the National Historic Preservation Act.

The lawsuit, which was filed on Friday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, asks Judge Stephanie Gallagher to vacate the agency’s approval of the project and to direct the bureau and the National Marine Fisheries Service to go back and review the proposal again in light of the allegations.

Of course, local industry dupes like the Baltimore Sun are crying foul.

Atlantic Ocean resort has, sadly, lawyered up in its fight against a much-needed green energy project. https://t.co/bvy7eutVnT

— The Baltimore Sun (@baltimoresun) October 30, 2024

WAAH is what this sour progressive editorial from a city that’s in such great shape itself boils down to.

It’s not every day that it’s the Atlantic Ocean beach resort dispatching the sharks, but that’s essentially what’s happening in Ocean City where town leaders have hired a Washington, D.C.-based law firm to attack federal authorities. In a lawsuit filed late last week, those attorneys are baring their teeth to go after the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s recent decision to approve U.S. Wind’s plan to install offshore wind turbines, a project badly needed if Maryland is to meet its clean energy goals. And, in a curious twist, they’ve brought on board some high-profile co-plaintiffs ranging from the owner of Thrasher’s French Fries to the company that operates the popular White Marlin Open fishing tournament.

Mayor Rick Meehan and others have long portrayed a potential wind farm as a harpoon to the heart of the tourist trade — even as the closest turbine would be at least 11 miles offshore which is two miles longer than the full length of Coastal Highway from the Delaware state line to the inlet. The over-the-top reaction has focused primarily on the “view shed” with the assumption that year-round residents and seasonal visitors alike will be appalled by the windmills on the horizon (with blinking lights that turn on when aircraft are detected nearby). That’s not been the case at Rhode Island’s eight-year-old Block Island Wind Farm, the nation’s first such project, which is less than three miles from the beach but, oh, well.

And well, they might whine. Even Bloomberg sees the wisdom behind the Ocean City lawsuit in an election year with polar opposite views on indulging climate cult schemes and grift, calling it an ‘Election Play.’

The fate of a Maryland offshore wind project will hinge on the outcome of the presidential election after nearby coastal communities challenged its federal permit in court last week.

Ocean City, Md., and surrounding communities and businesses filed a suit on Oct. 25 in the US District Court for the District of Maryland claiming that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s environmental review and September approval of US Wind’s 2 gigawatt Maryland Offshore Wind Project was unlawful.

Offshore wind power development has been one of the Biden administration’s top priorities under its climate change agenda, but former President Donald Trump said in May and repeatedly during his campaign that wind turbines are destructive and he’d end offshore wind development on “day one” if he were re-elected.

The wind power industry sees a second Trump administration as a “material four-year risk,” and Ocean City’s lawsuit will be an early indicator of the vulnerability of offshore wind projects in federal waters, said analyst Timothy Fox, managing director of ClearView Energy Partners in Washington.