Ocean City Floats an Offshore Lawsuit, Federal Preservationists Quit Lava Ridge, and More

1. Worcester County, Maryland –Ocean City is preparing to go to court “if necessary” to undo the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s approval last week of U.S. Wind’s Maryland Offshore Wind Project, town mayor Rick Meehan told me in a statement this week.

• Meehan listed off a litany of requests before the town apparently will be comfortable with the project, including a review of Ocean City property values, an economic study on impacts to the local economy, and safety measures to address blade failures like what happened at Vineyard Wind. Ultimately the town wants the project relocated “further to the east, as we have been asking for the past seven and a half years.”
• A lawsuit is definitely on the table but not guaranteed: “We will be meeting with our consultants and attorneys to discuss our next course of action. The last thing we want to do is go to court but we are prepared to do so if necessary to make sure that all environmental protection laws are complied with and that the safety and well-being of all our citizens [is] protected.”

2. Magic Valley, Idaho – The Lava Ridge Wind Project would be Idaho’s biggest wind farm. But it’s facing public outcry over the impacts it could have on a historic site for remembering the impact of World War II on Japanese residents in the United States.

• If constructed, it would surround internment camps where Japanese people were forcibly detained by the American government during the war. Activists opposed to Lava Ridge say that constructing the project would impact the solace of the space, killing the somber vibe. GOP politicians have also seized on the public relations morass.
• On Friday, the federal advisory council overseeing historic preservation law ended its consultation with regulators on the wind project, which is proposed by a subsidiary of LS Power.
• The council cited a number of factors, including the inability to mitigate impacts to the site as well as the unwillingness of Idaho state historic site regulators to go along with consultation.
• This has no apparent effect on project approval – at least not yet. Whether it’ll mean much will be up to the Bureau of Land Management, which takes into consideration the views of the advisory council in its decisions.

3. Kossuth County, Iowa – Iowa’s largest county – Kossuth – is in the process of approving a nine-month moratorium on large-scale solar development.

• Kossuth is already home to considerable renewable energy, including large wind farms operated by Invenergy and EDF Renewables.
• Anxiety generally is bubbling in Kossuth over an outgrowth of various energy projects aimed at decarbonization and the county is also involved in opposing the Summit Carbon Pipeline.
• County officials recently met with a researcher at Iowa State conducting federally-funded research of how solar could be deployed at the local level, per media reports.

Here’s a few more hotspots I’m watching…

• In Indiana, Aypa Power’s attempts to build a solar farm in Madison, Indiana have hit a snag with the city council voting against the project.
• Also in Iowa, opposition to an Apex Clean Energy wind farm could lead to a new county ordinance against wind.
• In New York, the town of Springfield is scheduled to meet Monday on a proposed temporary wind moratorium spurred by New Leaf Energy wind project.
• In Ohio, Whirlpool Corp. is hitting local snags as it tries to build three wind turbines.
• In Oregon, an 11-acre solar farm from Shoestring Solar LLC was greenlit by the small town of Riddle in spite of local dissent from its would-be neighbors.