Ocean City leaders correct to be wary of wind farms
I’m writing about what I consider to be The Baltimore Sun’s highly judgmental and unfair editorial, “Ocean City leadership has gone off the deep end on offshore wind” (Feb. 22). Ocean City’s mayor and City Council do not deserve your thoughtless derision.
The city’s leaders have said they will accept the windmills if they are pushed out five more miles so they can’t be seen from shore. The windmill operators balk at this because it would cut into their profits. Putting aside the fact that I believe it’s a crime against nature to pave over the ocean floor with huge swathes of concrete to build massive windmill skyscrapers that aren’t useful enough to warrant it, I’ll focus my comments on the very valid concerns expressed by the mayor and City Council regarding the aesthetics of the wind turbines.
You ridicule the city’s leaders for wanting to maintain an intact view of the ocean. The ocean view is not some small, trivial matter. It impacts the future viability of Ocean City. Ocean City is about the ocean. It’s the city’s lifeblood. What you have done is the equivalent of mocking a restaurant owner for wanting his food to look delicious and appetizing.
The ocean in Ocean City will never be beautiful again if the current windmill plan is implemented. It will also never function the same again, as the negative environmental impact would be staggering including threatening the existence of the horseshoe crab population, whales and dolphins. You mock the mayor and council for wanting their town to maintain a pristine view of the ocean, unmarred by gargantuan windmills covered by red warning lights for aircraft that will light up the ocean at night like a flood lamp. The moonlit views of the ocean will be gone forever.
Why do you have a problem with the mayor and council being concerned about this? It’s a mammoth and valid problem. Ocean City is a thriving town because of tourism. The ocean and beach drive the tourism and this generates huge amounts of revenue for the state. During the summer months, it’s the second biggest city in Maryland with an estimated 8 million visitors per year.
If these wind turbines are installed, Ocean City will, in all likelihood, become an impoverished beach town because its main attraction (the ocean) will become a distinct eyesore, serving as a constant and painful reminder that we are ruining earth’s greatest treasure for no good reason. We can get electricity elsewhere for a far less steep cost, aesthetically, environmentally and fiscally.
Yes, people will always go to the beach but those who have the money to take a nice vacation will naturally begin scratching
Ocean City off their list as a vacation destination. If you’re going to pay thousands for an oceanfront room at the beach for a week or two, would you rather go to Ocean City and stare out at windmills or go to another resort town with a pristine ocean view?
Since when do aesthetics fail to come into play when considering where to place any type of infrastructure eyesore? Why is that worry considered crazy and “off the deep end” by the editorial board? The windmills are a direct attack on the ocean view which is Ocean City’s main tourist attraction. The mayor’s job is to maintain or increase tourism in Ocean City and protecting the aesthetics of the ocean is a large and integral part of that.
I applaud Mayor Rick Meehan and members of the Ocean City Council for their efforts to maintain the ocean view. In addition, I hope that the state’s disastrous plan to pave our ocean floor with concrete skyscrapers fails. If it doesn’t, we will be viewed as environmental barbarians by future generations.