OCEAN CITY – Community members came out in droves this week to share their comments regarding an offshore wind project near Ocean City.
On Tuesday evening, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) hosted the first of two in-person public meetings regarding a draft environmental impact statement (EIS) on US Wind’s offshore wind project. Lorena Edenfield, environmental protection specialist for BOEM, said the federal agency will continue to collect comments through Nov. 20.
“Tonight, we really are here because we want to hear what we need to be including in the EIS,” she said. “We did do some scoping last year to determine what we needed to include in the draft EIS, and that really informed the process. So now we want to know how we did.”
Hundreds of people, many of whom shared their frustrations with the open-house format, visited Ocean City Elementary School on Tuesday evening to view various informational posters staffed by BOEM subject matter experts and to share their views on the US Wind project.
Those in opposition said they were concerned the wind turbines being proposed for the offshore lease area would not only impact wildlife, including whales and birds, but offshore fishing. West Ocean City resident Alan Rittmeyer, captain of the Roncito, said he worries the wind turbines could interfere with radar and make it more difficult for boats to navigate through the area.
Bottom line: They plan to jam this into every orifice of John Q Public while subsidizing these semi-operable windmills at rates much higher than purchase of electricity generated by every other conventional method. And when they break and fail, and they will (check Europe), they will abandon them as a permanent visual and navigational blight.