The county I represent continues to be negatively impacted by decisions of the Maryland 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.
Worcester County is blessed with unsurpassed natural resources: the golden sands of our beaches, the fertile soils of our fields, our bays and our rural landscapes. They define our community and beckon those from beyond our borders.
Our county is small in comparison to its neighbors. Our year-round population is less than 1% of the entire state. However, our visitor spending share is third-highest in the state. Each summer our county generates $2.5 billion in tourist spending, which accounts for more than 13% of statewide visitor spending annually.
Each year, more than eight million visitors are attracted to what Worcester is, what Worcester has created. Whether it is dining on fresh seafood and locally grown produce, imbibing craft beer and local wines, searching for seashells, paddleboarding or fishing, Maryland’s coast creates lifetime memories.
Tourists could go other places. Delaware and New Jersey beaches are to the north. Virginia and the Carolinas are to the south. All nice destinations, but they don’t offer what Worcester does — a more relaxed way of life, a natural beauty, and an economy and environment that Worcester has worked hard to protect and promote. 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.
Today, all three of Worcester County’s primary economic drivers that earn billions of dollars for the state treasury, employ thousands of workers here and across the state and nation and 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.
Our seaside horizon has been auctioned for windfarms. Wind turbines — that tower nearly three times the height of the Statue of Liberty above the ocean surface — are proposed to be erected within sight of Ocean City’s coast.
The impact of these monstrous structures should prick the conscience of all of us who value the splendor of the environment. Testing procedures are wreaking havoc on fragile aquatic life. Dead whales on the beach. Disoriented dolphins washing ashore. The threat to horseshoe crabs, which are critical to cancer and other medical research, is said to be unknown. And will endangered sea turtles, sturgeon and right whales be impacted by the electromagnetic fields generated by the underwater transmission lines?
The negative impact on our fishing industry is unconscionable. Plans to construct an oversized concrete pier in the West Ocean City harbor — established specifically as a commercial marine zoning district in 1999 — will obliterate local fishing industries.
Like many rural counties across the state, Worcester’s farmlands are under attack. The state is approving solar fields for large companies while denying the rights of local governments to apply their own zoning codes that reflect local values, objectives and ways of life. Fertile farmlands are being plowed under by major companies who seek unfettered profits on historically low-taxed fields.
The people of our county are being disrespected. Still, I hope opportunities can be found through cooperative discussions with the state that will ultimately blaze a path forward that respects Worcester County’s way of life, its environment and its commerce.
Chip Bertino (cbertino@co.worcester.md.us) is a member and president of the Worcester County Board of County Commissioners. This article is adapted from remarks he made at the opening of the Maryland Association of Counties summer conference in Ocean City.