Besides the local TV report, there's been national news coverage including a 2 min. video interviewing a Congressional member, Rep. Jeff Van Drew, who recently participated in the meeting at the Ocean City Convention Center. To access the video:   Click Here   

Many people may recall that O.C. Mayor Rick Meehan outlined how the Ocean City officials' have environmental concerns from those planned wind projects as well as the threat of significant declines in local tourism. Such wind farm industrialization could cut off a major segment of the resort's sole industry, its life blood, tourism.

Throughout that meeting, Congressmen Andy Harris, Chris Smith and Van Drew were joined by experts from a whale protection group, fishing industry interests, the CATO institute and other officials. Numerous environmental impacts were described, endangering the whales as well as commercial and sport fishing industries.

An underwater audio (sound) expert testified how intensive and repetitive sounds from the wind turbine projects can disorient whales and injure their hearing, leading to beaching and deaths.

Costs were also big concerns, as offshore wind is likely the most expensive way of producing power. The intermittency of sufficient wind blowing, requires that back up generators be maintained, a large hidden cost that's often overlooked. Tax payers are hit with costs of subsidies "gifted" to the contractors, and utility rate payers are hit with large increasing power bills.

Despite the recent announcement by Orsted, shelving their offshore project agreement with Maryland, the two US Wind projects offshore from Ocean City are still proceeding. And the Md. Orsted project may later be reactivated, as occurred for two New Jersey projects that had been shelved, a few months ago. No surprise that such reactivations were accompanied by states agreeing to cover rising costs either thru higher subsidies and/or for prices of KWh to be generated.

Mayor Meehan expects that US Wind will also be asking for more funding. He told the local press: “The bottom line is that they (Orsted) will be seeking additional funding for their for profit venture. I think that it is only reasonable to expect that US Wind will fall in line with the exact same request. . . "   Click Here