Sussex County Council imposed a great disservice to the residents of the fastest-growing county in the fastest-growing state in the Mid-Atlantic Region Dec. 17, when members voted down an opportunity to receive $128 million from US Wind in the form of lease payments, community benefits and upgrades to Delaware's grid in exchange for the use of a parcel of land for a new electrical substation for its offshore wind project off the coast of Ocean City. The parcel is adjacent to the Indian River power plant, which for decades was responsible for high levels of toxic chemicals seeping into the county's groundwater and surface water from its Burton Island coal ash landfill. The stack emissions from the plant are also suspected to be linked the elevated cancer rates in the area that includes Dagsboro, Frankford, Georgetown, Millsboro, Ocean View and Selbyville.
Given that legacy, it is ironic that Sussex County Council would vote to block a clean energy project that would boost the Delaware economy and contribute to cleaner air for all residents. That is after the Department of Interior issued final permits for the project, with support from Gov. John Carney, the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, and other state officials.
The circumstances surrounding council's vote raise questions. Reporters for Spotlight Delaware discovered that immediately prior to council's vote, officials from Worcester County and Ocean City mysteriously funded a PR campaign to sway Sussex County Council's vote. Seemingly out of thin air, Ocean City and Worcester County each came up with $100,000 for which a new website, stopoffshorewind.com, materialized just days before council's vote. The website urged its readers to tell council members to deny the permit. Whether that campaign influenced the vote, questions remain. What gives officials in Maryland the right to meddle in the affairs of a neighboring state? Where did the $200,000 spontaneously come from? Did the officials from Worcester County and Ocean City privately benefit from the scheme to thwart the economic, environmental and health benefits that Delaware residents were on track to receive?
Sussex County residents ought to be outraged that their interests were superseded by the meddling of elected officials from another state. In light of what has occurred, Sussex residents ought to demand the vote be taken up a second time, this time taking into account the interests of Delaware residents and not the interests of the agents behind the interstate meddling.
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