People relax along the Sinepuxent Bay shoreline in Worcester County on Aug. 15. File photo by William J. Ford.
Opponents will have more time to weigh in on a proposal for a pier in the Sinepuxent Bay that is needed to serve an offshore wind power project, after state officials paused action on the proposal Wednesday.
The Board of Public Works had been scheduled to approve a tidal wetlands license that would have let U.S. Wind begin work on replacing a pier in West Ocean City that is needed to serve its operations and maintenance facility planned for Harbor Road. The company recently won final federal approval to construct a wind farm of up to 114 turbines at a site in the Atlantic Ocean more than 8 miles off the coast of Ocean City.
Board staff pulled the item from the board’s agenda, however, to make sure that everyone who expressed opposition to the project at at March public hearing had received notice of the recommendation to approve the license, and had time to comment on it.
At issue is a proposal to build a 353-foot-long by 30-foot-wide concrete pier to serve U.S. Wind’s crew transfer vessels. The plan drew a significant amount of opposition at a March 25 public hearing, where 179 people showed up.
After that hearing, state officials said they received 869 letters – 835 of which were one-page form letters – opposing the project, and just six supporting it. Concerns raised by the opponents included fears about environmental damage, about possible harm to local businesses and concerns that increased boat traffic could hamper navigation in the harbor.
But the Maryland Department of the Environment answered those concerns in a 13-page letter in July that said the project was not that unusual and did not pose the threats opponents feared. And state officials added a number of special conditions to the wetlands license to minimize any threats, such as a prohibition on in-water work from May 15 to July 15 to avoid interfering with horseshoe crab spawning, and using special techniques or tools to reduce the impact of pile-driving.
The department and board administrators had recommended that the Board of Public Works – made up of the governor, comptroller and state treasurer – approve a wetlands license for the project, before the item was withdrawn from Wednesday’s agenda to allow for more public comment. No time was set to bring the issue back before the board, but it is not expecte to happen before the board’s meeting next month at the earliest.