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Health & Fitness

Baltimore City Businesses Support Offshore Wind Power

Community advocates have found small businesses across the city strongly support the Governor O'Malley's offshore wind initiative. Hundreds have signed letters of support.

In the debate whirling around Governor O’Malley’s offshore wind energy legislation, one of the top questions in the mix concerns whether the plan to build a 310 MW wind farm off Maryland’s coast would be good for the state’s small businesses. The good news is that several studies contend that the answer is “yes.” A report recently released by the Maryland Energy Administration found that the state could become a manufacturing hub for offshore-wind development and the Department of Business and Economic Development has found that this one offshore wind project could bring over two billion dollars in net economic benefits to the state during construction.

Of course, it’s all well and good for the government to make projections. But what do the people on the ground, the small business owners who really know the pulse of the local economy think about offshore wind?

To get a good read on the situation, advocates for Marylanders for Offshore Wind have hit the streets in Baltimore to talk to small business owners and managers, and after a few weeks of door to door outreach the answer is in: small businesses across the city overwhelmingly support the wind initiative. Indeed approximately 150 businesses across the city have signed letters supporting wind since 2011, including no less than 25 in recent weeks that signed a letter explicitly supporting the financial investment required to jumpstart the industry.  (Click here to read the letter and see the list of local signatories.)

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The Governor’s offshore wind plan is projected to cause a small bump in energy costs for consumers in 2017. But Jackie Brown manager of Penn Optical at the Mondawmin Mall of West Baltimore says that concerns about the small upfront cost should be seen in the bigger picture context. “If we want to save money on energy, we can’t keep doing the same old, same old,” Brown said. “I’m all for paying for wind power because I know it’s going to help bring our costs down in the long run.”

Another small business owner, Terence Dickson, of the Terra Cafe in Charles Village expressed similar feelings: “I don’t know why we haven’t done this sooner. You don’t get anywhere in business without making investments so how do we expect to get cleaner air and more jobs without making the investments in technologies like wind power?”

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Support isn’t limited to local businesses. Nearly 200 additional small businesses statewide have signed on to letters of support for offshore wind since 2011, and a recent hearing for the wind bill saw local chambers of commerce, business consortia, and entrepreneurs all testifying in favor of the bill.

The Baltimore small-business community has voted yes for offshore wind. Now it’s time for Baltimore lawmakers to do the same and pass the Maryland Offshore Wind Energy Act of 2012.

Photo credit: Phault via Flickr creative commons

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