“Worcester County continues to be negatively impacted by decisions of the state legislature and state agencies regarding wind turbines and solar power fields that are usurping local autonomy and threatening our community’s way of life,” said Worcester County Commission President Chip Bertino last week in Ocean City during the MACo gathering.
Bertino posted an adapted version of his opening remarks on his Facebook page over the weekend and sent the comments to this newspaper as a letter to the editor. Bertino has long been critical of state mandates that shift financial burdens to the county jurisdictions, such as recent state decisions that place more health department spending on county governments. In his commentary, Bertino pointed out Worcester County’s tourism spending tops $2.5 billion annually, resulting in over 13% of Maryland’s visitor spending.
“Our county is founded on three economic drivers: tourism, which generates state and local revenues; commercial and recreational fishing, which are served by the West Ocean City harbor, the only commercial harbor in the Mid-Atlantic region with ocean access; and finally, agriculture, which is dependent on healthy soil to grow crops and to nourish livestock that feed the county, the state, and the nation,” Bertino said. “Today, all three of Worcester County’s primary economic drivers that earn billions of dollars for the state treasury, that employ thousands of workers here and across the state and nation, and that attract millions of tourists annually are falling prey to greedy, external predators. Concerns raised, and requests made by the County Commissioners for assistance have been ignored repeatedly by those most in a position to help and by the institutions of government that smile upon the promises of foreign business interests that rely heavily on taxpayer subsidies to fund their uncertain startups, while turning a blind eye to the disastrous consequences that result locally.”
The most recent subject of ire, specifically, is the offshore wind farm under development and on a fast track to reality.