By Stewart Dobson

Editor

U.S. Wind’s plan to build a 353-foot-long pier in the harbor in West Ocean City will go before the Maryland Board of Public Works (BPW) in Annapolis next Wednesday, when the board decides whether to grant the offshore wind developer the tidal wetlands permit it needs for the project.

In addition to the 30-foot-wide concrete pier, which would replace a dilapidated structure that juts out past the harbor entrance, the company intends to install 383 feet of bulkhead.

The pier would serve an operations and maintenance facility the company plans to build at the harbor to service the offshore installation’s support vessels.

The company’s pursuit of the wetlands permit will carry with it a recommendation of approval from the Maryland Department of Environment, which based its findings exclusively on the project’s impact on the harbor’s wetlands.

Although the department’s report to the BPW recognized strong opposition to the proposed pier, the state’s wetlands administrator declared that many of those objections fell outside the department’s purview.

Following the department’s March 25 hearing on U.S. Wind’s application for the permit and its subsequent call for more public comment, it received 882 letters of opposition, 835 of which were form letters, the department’s report said.

Among the objections raised were the negative effect the pier and the operation and maintenance facility could have on the local commercial fishing industry.

The department said, however, that was a matter for the Department of Natural Resources, which has been working with U.S. Wind to create a package that would compensate commercial operators for losses suffered because of wind farm development.

“Specifically, the Board’s evaluation of the license is confined to the impacts of the proposed bulkhead replacement and pier construction in the wetlands,” the department’s report said.

Outside of that is U.S. Wind’s three-phase plan to install up to 114 turbines in its 80,000-acre lease area off the Maryland coast. Two of the phases, MarWin and Momentum, have received the blessing of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, while a third phase has yet to be put before state and federal authorities.

As it stands, the closest turbines to shore would be around 15 miles out once the second phase, Momentum, is developed, while the third unnamed and unapproved phase would bring turbines to just under 11 miles from the beach.

Although the pier and facility are but a small part of the overall wind farm project, U.S Wind needs on onshore home port nearby, and whether it gets it will be up to only entity of its kind in the 50 states.

Maryland’s Board of Public Works is the “highest administrative authority” in the state and exercises power over state spending and major projects such as this one. This is even though it has just three members — the governor, the state treasurer and the state comptroller.