Credit: By Angela Price | August 5, 2015 | www.myeasternshoremd.com ~~
CENTREVILLE – The Queen Anne’s County Commissioners sent a letter July 23 to the Kent County Commissioners in support of their opposition to Apex Clean Energy’s wind turbine project known as Mills Branch Wind.
“The Queen Anne’s County Commissioners believe that a project covering such a large portion of a rural county will result in significant impacts to the rural landscape of Kent County and Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Further, if a project as proposed could move forward in Kent County it is likely that other rural counties, such as Queen Anne’s County, will see similar undesirable proposals in the near future,” they wrote.
The letter to Kent’s commissioners arrived in their mail Monday, Aug. 3, said Sondra Blackiston, clerk of the commissioners office.
If the Mills Branch Wind project should move forward to the Public Service Commission, the Queen Anne’s Commissioners indicated their willingness to testify against the project.
“We support the Kent County Commissioners in opposing this offensive and unwanted project on Maryland’s Eastern Shore,” they wrote.
The project, proposed by Virginia-based Apex Clean Energy, calls for 25 to 35 wind turbines on about 5,000 acres of farmland, to produce 100 megawatts of energy – enough to power some 25,000 houses annually.
Apex must acquire a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity from the PSC before it can build a generating facility or transmission line.
The governing bodies of Kent and Queen Anne’s counties are part of a growing number of entities opposed to the project, including the Queen Anne’s Conservation Association, Keep Kent Scenic, Washington College and the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy.