Coastal Bays Program blasted for wind position

Disheartening. Deleterious. The Devil.

These and other harsh words were spoken Tuesday as county officials excoriated a local environmental nonprofit for accepting $125,000 in donations from the developer of proposed offshore wind project on Maryland’s coastline.

“Your organization sold out to a big business. It sounds to me that was a payoff to keep you neutral – a payoff to keep you quiet,” said District 4 (Western) County Commissioner Ted Elder. “I’m sorry, that’s the way I feel.”

Elder’s tongue lashing was directed at Kevin Smith, the executive director of the Maryland Coastal Bays Program. Smith came before the commissioners Tuesday to ask for a letter of support than would help the conservationist organization secure a multimillion-dollar state grant.

Instead, Smith was scolded not only for Coastal Bays’ neutral stance on wind energy, but for the organization’s acceptance of monetary donations over a three-year period from US Wind. The developer plans to install 114 wind turbines off the Ocean City shoreline to generate electricity for the mid-Atlantic.

Wind power is not without its problems. District 1 (Pocomoke) Commissioner Caryn Abbott mentioned a July incident when splintered bits of a detached fiberglass turbine blade washed ashore on the Massachusetts island of Nantucket.

“With just one blade breaking off, those beaches were closed for weeks. God knows how much revenue was lost. It’s disheartening when environmental groups in our own country are accepting money,” she said. “What did they expect for that money?

Smith countered that the donations from US Wind came over a three-year period with “no strings attached” and helped the Maryland Coastal Bays Program successfully fund habitat conservation for threatened bird species.

“We were fortunate to get funding to address those issues, because we don’t have the funding otherwise. I understand Commissioner Elder’s take on this, but for us, as an environmental organization, we like to deal with issues that are directly in front of us and in the coastal bays themselves. I think it’s important you understand that,” Smith said.

He added that his group takes a neutral position on the wind project because his organization is not an advocacy organization. To take a position against the US Wind project, the program’s leadership would have to feel there was a “deleterious effect” – meaning harmful or damaging – “to the coastal bays.”

Elder said he’s of the opinion that not only should the Maryland Coastal Bays Program be supportive of Worcester County’s anti-wind position, but the organization should return the money.

“When you start accepting money from the devil, bad things start happening,” Elder told Smith. “It’s been proven over and over again that these are deleterious, to use your word, to the ocean.”

According to the website Open Secrets, US Wind has given more than $68,000 in campaign contributions to political candidates and their parties in both Maryland and Delaware since 2015. That includes $26,000 to the Maryland Democratic Party, $2,500 to Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson, and $7,000 to Gov. Wes Moore.

An Italian-based corporation with local operations out of Baltimore, US Wind in 2019 secured a lease area in the Atlantic Ocean to construct 938-foot-tall turbines within view of Ocean City.

Opponents argue the turbines, which could come as close as 10.7 miles off the beach if US Wind is allowed to proceed with a third phase of its project, will harm commercial fishing, hurt tourism, and upset the ecological balance of the ocean.

While the wind farm developer has yet to drive its first piling in the ocean floor, Maryland’s Board of Public Works voted Nov. 20 to grant a tidal wetlands license that will allow US Wind to build a 353-foot concrete pier and bulkhead in the West Ocean City commercial fishing harbor. The pier would serve as home port for wind farm support vessels.

At Tuesday’s meeting in Snow Hill, Smith did not get what he came for: a letter of support for an application for a rare and substantial grant.

The grant from the state Department of Natural Resources would award $1 million a year for five years to up to five applicants. The money will be drawn from the newly created Whole Watershed Fund. With local matches, Smith said the grant could yield $20 million. The grant window closes Dec. 3 and won’t reopen for five years.

Smith said the money would go toward restoration of Newport Bay, an arm of Chincoteague Bay nestled between South Point and Newark.

District 3 Commissioner (West Ocean City) Eric Fiori, with a second from District 2 (Central) Commissioner Diana Purnell, moved to approve the letter. But the motion failed to carry without the requisite four yea votes: Elder voted nay, while Commissioners Abbott, Chip Bertino (Ocean Pines) and Jim Bunting (Bishopville) abstained.

“Before voting on this, I would like to hear what your board has to say,” Bertino said, with Abbott and Bunting agreeing with him. “You understand the concerns we have. I understand the constraints you’re in. I’d like your board to have the opportunity to address the concerns we have.”

Bertino, the board of commissioners president, said the wind turbine project as proposed could prove “the beginning of the decimation of our fishing industry.”

“The commissioners, this government, has taken a very strong stance of opposition to these wind turbines, to the fact that we will be losing our harbor and fishing industries, if it moves forward,” he said.