History · 2021–2025
The Horizon: Ocean City against the wind farm
Ocean City's last great external fight is not about the sea or the sand but about the view - and it is the first one the town has clearly lost. Having spent fifty years arguing that it was the good environmental actor on this coast, the town found the State's climate policy pointed at its own horizon, hired a visual expert, and was overruled.
In December 2021 the Maryland Public Service Commission approved the Round 2 offshore wind projects - Ørsted's Skipjack Wind 2.1 and US Wind's Momentum Wind, 1,654.5 MW combined - over the town's objections. The Department Activity Report of 12 January 2022 states the result in engineering prose: 146 turbines, 69 in the Skipjack lease area twenty miles out and 77 in the US Wind area twelve to fifteen miles out, awarded 'despite our testimony and the testimony of our visual expert'. Having lost before the State, the town escalated to the federal level and bought the expertise, approving a contract in July 2023 of up to $175,500 with SLR International for peer review of US Wind's Construction and Operations Plan - the City Manager recording that SLR had done a small job for Ørsted in the past but none for US Wind. The word the minutes use is not 'opposition' but 'relocation efforts'.
A town whose entire product is a view of the water hired somebody to testify about the view, and lost. What makes the thread worth having is not the loss but the reversal it completes: in 1978 the federal agencies told Ocean City its jetties were eating Assateague and the town waited the objection out. In 2022 the environmental argument is on the other side of the table and the town is the one being waited out.
3 beats · 5 dated facts · 3 open questions
The arc
2021 · pivotal
The Public Service Commission approves Round 2
On 17 December 2021 the Maryland Public Service Commission approved the Round 2 offshore wind projects - Ørsted's Skipjack Wind Phase 2.1 and US Wind's Momentum Wind, **1,654.5 MW combined** - over Ocean City's objections. The credits came out of the Offshore Renewable Energy Credit round created by the 2019 Maryland Clean Energy Jobs Act, which is to say that the thing arriving on the town's horizon is not a private development but the State's own climate policy, executed by a State commission.
2022 · pivotal
A hundred and forty-six turbines, and "our visual expert"
The Department Activity Report of 12 January 2022 contains the decade's defining external fight in two sentences of engineering prose: "**Assisting with offshore wind farm relocation efforts.** US Wind and Ørsted have both submitted proposals for the new round of Offshore Renewable Energy Credits created in the 2019 Maryland Clean Energy Jobs Act and **despite our testimony and the testimony of our visual expert, the PSC has awarded credits to both firms** that would result in an additional 60 turbines in the Skipjack lease area for a total of 69 turbines 20 miles from Ocean City, and an additional 55 turbines in the US Wind Lease Area for a total of 77 turbines 12–15 miles from Ocean City." A hundred and forty-six turbines, the nearest twelve miles out. And the phrase that says what kind of town this is: **our visual expert.** Ocean City hired somebody to testify about the view. Read against the record the reversal is complete - in 1978 the Park Service told this town its jetties were eating Assateague and the council waited the objection out; in 2002 the town argued with data that it was the better environmental actor and the State was behind its own rules; here the State's environmental programme puts a wind farm on its horizon and the town loses. The minutes call it not opposition but *relocation efforts*: no longer whether, only where.
1978 on the timeline2002 on the timeline2022 on the timeline
2023
Buying the expertise, and disclosing whose it was
Having lost before the State, the town went to the federal level and paid for standing. On 17 July 2023 the council approved a contract with SLR International Corporation - working with Smultea Environmental Sciences, Climate Arts & Science Experts and Chronicle Heritage - for peer and technical review of US Wind's Construction and Operations Plan. The City Manager's memo is careful about the conflict question in a way this record rewards: "I then had a series of meetings with SLR to refine their scope of work and make sure they had no conflicts of interest given the City's position on the US Wind project as it is currently proposed in the COP. **SLR did do a small job for Ørsted in the past** and they have done extensive work for wind farm developers in Europe but none for US Wind or any company affiliated with US Wind." What is being bought is spelled out: review of every item in the plan touching the town or the turbine locations, "including impacts on the Horseshoe Crap [sic], Right Whale, visual impacts, cultural and economic impacts and many others. This work is highly specialized and the cost reflects that. The fee will be based on actual time and expenses **not to exceed $175,500.**" A town of seven thousand commissioning its own scientific review of a federal energy project.
What we still cannot show
Recorded by the research itself, with where the answer would come from.
- 2021–2022 **What Ocean City's visual expert actually testified is not in this corpus**, nor is the PSC's reasoning for discounting it. The town's loss is known only from its own one-paragraph summary of it.Where to look: Maryland Public Service Commission case files for the Round 2 ORECs; the town's filed testimony
- 2023–2025 **SLR's review has not been read**, and whether it changed anything at the federal level is unknown. The contract is the last thing this record has on the subject.Where to look: BOEM's US Wind COP docket; 2024-25 Granicus minutes
- 2021–2025 **No proponent of the wind farms speaks in this corpus.** US Wind and Ørsted appear only as counterparties in Ocean City's own reports.Where to look: Maryland Coast Dispatch; PSC hearing transcripts
Threads that cross this one
The Inlet: sixty-four years of asking, and one night of weatherThe Beach We Bought: how sand became a line item