A new poll finds solid support among Eastern Shore residents for offshore wind, with strong majorities convinced wind projects will benefit jobs, improve health conditions and support American energy independence.

The poll was sponsored by Shore Progress, an Eastern Shore regional advocacy group, and conducted by Gonzales Research & Media Services, Inc., a respected polling firm based in Annapolis.

The poll found that among Eastern Shore residents, 51% support building offshore wind farms off the coast of Maryland, while 37% say they would oppose them, with 12% giving no opinion. The poll found that 54% of Shore residents support a goal of moving away from fossil fuels and toward renewable sources, such as offshore wind, with 39% opposed and 7% offering no opinion.

• Respondents agreed by significant margins that offshore wind would have positive impacts in several areas, including 70 percent who agreed that offshore wind would have a positive benefit on jobs and 67 percent who said it would provide health benefits.

• Agreed that offshore wind would bring benefits in five other key areas:
• Air and water quality: 66% – 27%
• Electricity prices: 65% – 25%
• Energy independence: 65% – 26%
• Electricity reliability: 61% — 31%
• Climate change: 56% — 31%
• On the question of whether offshore wind would have a positive impact on ocean ecosystems and marine life, respondents were evenly split; 43%-43% with 14% undecided.

“The results are clear, Eastern Shore voters strongly support building an offshore wind farm off our coast,” said Jared Schablein, Chair of Shore Progress. “The U.S. Wind project is a huge investment in our community. It will bring good-paying jobs and help us become energy independent at a time when energy bills are skyrocketing. It’s time to move forward with clean energy, lower costs, and good jobs for the Shore.”

U.S. Wind is pursuing an offshore wind farm well off the coast of Ocean City. The project would build 114 wind turbines, generating more than 2 gigawatts of clean electricity—enough to power over 718,000 Maryland homes, with zero greenhouse gas emissions. The project has secured federal and state permits and could begin construction in 2025.

The poll was conducted by Gonzales Research & Media Services, Inc. from December 27, 2024, through January 6, 2025, sampling 404 registered voters on Maryland’s Eastern Shore in Maryland Senate Districts 36, 37, and 38. The margin of error on these questions is plus or minus 5 percentage points. If the entire population in the region was surveyed, there is a 95% probability that the true numbers would fall within this range.

“At Tilghman Island Seafood, we collaborate closely with watermen who are dedicated to the Chesapeake Bay’s unique ecosystem.  These local watermen recognize that their livelihoods are deeply connected to the health of our waters. We are committed to balancing productive fishing with responsible practices to help secure the Bay’s future.” – FromTilghman Island Seafood’s promotional marketing material

Nick Hargrove on the deck of the buyboat Bivalve he uses for deploying shells to Chesapeake Bay oyster bars. His rapidly growing Tilghman Island Seafood operation is located just over the drawbridge at Knapps Narrows. DENNIS FORNEY PHOTO

Rumplestiltskin perfected a method for spinning straw into gold.  A pretty neat trick.

Now some latter-day local Rumplestiltskins– swapping American ingenuity for the spinning wheel–are doing something similar except with invasive catfish and oyster shells instead of straw.

Blue catfish ravaging Chesapeake Bay’s crabbing and finfish industries, and millions of tons of discarded and aging oyster shells on Washington’s Pacific coast are proving profitable for enterprising watermen. Ecological benefits are also part of this unique equation.

Nick Hargrove of Tilghman Island Seafood and his oyster partners at Dorchester County’s Farm Creek Oyster Farm and Madison Shell Recycling–brothers Alex and Benny Horseman–are in the thick of what is shaping up to be an inspired renaissance for the Chesapeake seafood industry. Inspired, because Hargrove’s marketing of catfish from coast to coast is helping control a damaging invasive species, while importing discarded west coast oyster shells is helping address the scarcity of local oyster shells needed for restoration of the Chesapeake’s oyster populations. Good for the oyster industry. and good for cleaning the Bay’s waters.

That, in turn, is solving Pacific Seafood’s dilemma of what to do with endless piles of oyster shells discarded after their meats have been harvested.

“Pacific Seafood is one of the west coast’s largest seafood processors,” said Hargrove in a recent interview. “Up until now the only use for the shells has been by Washington state for nature trails. They looked at us like we were crazy when we told them we thought we could use them all. We’re talking about seven million or so tons of old oyster shells, piled up in heaps forty and fifty feet tall.”

Nick Hargrove provided this image of a small portion of the west coast treasure trove of discarded and aged oyster shells now filling a missing link in the Chesapeake oyster restoration initiative. The heaps of shells, like ancient Native American middens, are located on Pacific Seafood’s property in Washington State.

So, while Hargrove has been building a nationwide network of catfish sales including Whole Foods and other seafood purveyors, he and his oyster partners successfully completed the lengthy process necessary to receive Maryland’s first permit for importing non-native shells for restoration and aquaculture.

After the permit process to ensure the old and aged imported shells won’t create another invasive species problem, it appears the west coast trove will meet decades of need for replenishing, rebuilding and seeding the Bay’s oyster bars. “The big deal for the permitting was the fact that these west coast shells are domestic and not foreign,” said Hargrove.

When weather isn’t hampering catfish and oyster harvesting, as ice is doing now, Hargrove’s operations handle 100,000 pounds of fresh catfish filets and 1,000 bushels of oysters per week.

He employs 30 people in processing and about 70 watermen who harvest the oysters and catfish.

 “It’s a lot of responsibility and requires lots of capital,” said Hargrove.

“Ice in the upper Chesapeake is keeping our catfish watermen in and that’s hampering our production,” he said recently.  “We like to handle about 20,000 pounds of filets a day, but in weather like this we’re lucky to get 20,000 pounds a week. Demand is exceeding our ability to supply, but that goes with this business. There will always be ups and downs.  We’ve learned to bob and weave.”

The juggling act is continuous: perfecting marketing and sales, creating new products like catfish nuggets, seeking legislation to further enhance catfish harvesting, and making plans for meeting spring and summer planting demands for oyster shells being trucked east.

 “Right now I’m working with Sen. Johnny Mautz on a bill that would allow electric-shock fishing for catfish,” said Hargrove.  “That would be particularly helpful for the summer when the fish aren’t as hungry.”

At the same time, he and his partners are figuring out how many oyster shells they will be able to sell to the state for this year’s demands. The state buys loads of bushels with attached spat–baby, tick-sized oysters–as well as bare shells.

Bare shells are deployed to help rebuild oyster bars with material that attracts naturally occurring oyster spat in the Bay’s waters. Spa- on-shell are used to seed sanctuary, public fishery and leased aquaculture bottom where proper substrate, also known as cultch, already exists.

Chris Judy, director of Maryland’s shellfish division, said the west coast oyster shells–of the crassostrea gigas species–are proving effective at attracting spat. “They have been properly assessed and approved, and have the added advantage of being less expensive than shell bought from Virginia. Even being shipped all the way across the country they are still less expensive than the shells from Virginia,” said Judy.

He said west coast gigas shells, as well as crushed concrete and rocks, have been tested by University of Maryland’s Horn Point Laboratory in Dorchester County as possible alternatives to the native crassostrea virginica oyster shells typically used for restoration. Because of demand up and down the Chesapeake, in Maryland and Virginia for restoration projects, native shells–recycled after harvesting and shucking–are in short supply.

In laboratory conditions, the gigas shells proved the most effective of all the alternatives at attracting spat.  They even proved more effective than native shells included as part of the test.

“That was in laboratory conditions,” said Judy. “In the Bay waters, in more variable conditions, the gigas shells performed better than native shells in some areas, equal to them in other areas, and not as well in some areas.

“We deployed about 89,000 bushels of gigas shells last May and June–just shells–in places like Tangier Sound, Honga River and Harris Creek to improve the oyster bars, the spat set and to enhance the industry,” said Judy. “When we checked on them again in the fall, we found they had worked well.  A favorable spat set. They do the job, as do the other alternatives, but these are more cost effective. Concrete and rocks also work as a substrate for catching spat, but they are more expensive.”

The gigas shells, said Judy, will be a “major contribution” to what is already being accomplished in Maryland’s oyster restoration efforts.

Over the next two months, Judy said the shellfish division will be contacting various county oyster committee officials to determine their preferences for where in 2025 they would like bare oyster shells and spat-on-shell planted. Those discussions will also include what kind of shells would be preferred.

Between federal funds, state capital funds, sanctuary funds, bushel taxes, oyster export taxes and surcharge fees paid by watermen for oystering licenses, the state has millions of dollars to spend over the next few years for planting bare shells, seeding with spat on shell, and other restoration efforts.

That is in addition to other efforts such as Oyster Restoration Partnership initiatives which included hundreds of millions of spat on shell deployed in  2024.

Hot-off-the-press printed materials developed by Tilghman Island Seafood are helping build nation-wide sales of Chesapeake Bay catfish.

Judy said given the attractiveness of the west coast gigas shells supply and their cost effectiveness, the amount the shellfish division buys this year will be up to how much Hargrove wants to sell; and to the amount funding will allow. He said that includes bare shells and spat-on-shell for public fishery bars, and for whatever may be available for the state’s oyster sanctuaries.

Hargrove said he sees the gigas shells as a game changer.  “We received our permit to use the shells in August of 2022. In 2023 we deployed about 100,000 bushels of spat-on-shell, and 180,000 bushels in 2024.  That’s for public and private ground seeding efforts. We deployed more spat-on-shell bushels on private grounds than on public grounds and that’s a first.” They also deployed hundreds of thousands of bushels of bare gigas shells for bottom restoration purposes.

Hargrove said he used a pen and the back of a napkin to design the oyster-tanks-and-cages system he uses for his spat-on-shell operation at the Tilghman Island Seafood complex.

Using larvae purchased from oyster hatcheries like Horn Point, near Cambridge, and Ferry Cove, near Tilghman, he blends them into cages filled with about 30 bushels of oyster shells in tanks pumped full of  Bay water from Knapps Narrows.

The larvae take about two weeks to attach to the bare shells.  “When the spat are about the size of a tick on the shells, we lift the cages out of the tanks and transport them to a hopper and conveyor belt.  We load them on the decks of buy boats we use to take them to the bars designated by the different state and county entities.

“We’re getting the resources we need,” said Hargrove, “and the industry is starting to grow. Now we have access to the shells we need, access to all the larvae we need for spat–Ferry Cove is doing a helluva job–and we have the capacity to exceed the state’s needs and handle private aquaculture needs as well. Plus, we can do it cheaper than buying from Virginia and keep all the money in Maryland instead.”

Judy said results from the annual statewide fall oyster survey in October will be released in March.  “Generally speaking, the Bay received a spat set and the survival rate was good.  The spat from the tremendous, widely distributed set we saw in 2023 are growing now to smalls.  That’s all positive news.”

For the last few years, the nuclear energy industry has stood on the precipice of the Maryland energy policy debate, waiting for its close-up.

Industry leaders and their lobbyists have repeatedly talked about how important nuclear is to the state’s power portfolio. They have implied, without saying so outright, that nuclear, which accounts for 40% of the energy generated in the state, and 80% of its carbon-free energy, ought to get greater recognition from Maryland policymakers — along with state subsidies.

On Thursday, the head of the industry’s national trade association, the Nuclear Energy Institute, got more than an hour in the House Economic Matters Committee to boast about nuclear’s potential, as state lawmakers wrestle with an energy shortage, spiking prices, clean energy goals and climate mandates.

“The value of nuclear is you get all of this very reliable, clean power,” Maria Korsnick, the NEI CEO, testified. She later told lawmakers, “The point of my being here is to be helpful to you.”

The Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant in Southern Maryland has been a workhorse for five decades and is likely to be relicensed for several more decades sometime in the 2030s. But scientists and engineers are also developing more compact nuclear technologies that don’t require so much space and water to operate, which are often called small modular reactors (SMR).

A package of bills from legislative leaders designed to generate more energy in Maryland and reduce ratepayer costs, includes giving nuclear energy “tier 1” status, making it eligible for certain state clean energy subsidies. But House Economic Matters Chair C.T. Wilson (D-Charles), an architect of the just-introduced measures, said he invited NEI to speak to his committee not to hype nuclear power, but to inject a dose of reality, because the newer technologies still won’t be ready for several years.

“It’s a reminder to people it’s not a magic word,” Wilson said in an interview. “It’s got to be planned. It’s much more challenging than saying the word ‘SMR.’ It wasn’t to sell it.”

The nuclear briefing was part of a long day of hearings in the Economic Matters Committee on hot energy topics. The panel also heard testimony on legislation that would scale back a controversial natural gas infrastructure program, and on a massive bill to promote the generation of clean energy in Maryland.

In a way, it was a microcosm of the energy debates that will dominate the rest of the General Assembly session in a single afternoon.

A range of Maryland policymakers believe nuclear needs to become a bigger part of the state’s clean energy portfolio, especially as other technologies like solar and wind struggle to fully realize their potential.

“Nuclear has the opportunity to play — or to be — part of the solutions, like never before,” Korsnick told Economic Matters Committee members Thursday.

She laid out some of the new technologies that are being developed, answered questions about nuclear plant safety and security, the disposition of nuclear waste, the nuclear workforce, and steps states are taking to incentivize nuclear energy. Korsnick did not come with a specific ask of lawmakers, but did say that states and local communities are increasingly embracing nuclear power, where once they feared and shunned it.

“When I say nuclear is going to be thriving, it’s not because we’re pushing for it, it’s because people are pulling for it,” she said.

Boosting nuclear energy is part of the bill that the committee heard later in the day, the Abundant Affordable Clean Energy – Procurement and Development Act, sponsored by Del. Lorig Charkoudian (D-Montgomery). That bill would ease state regulatory hurdles for relicensing the Calvert Cliffs plant in the 2030’s (though the federal government takes the lead in that process).

Charkoudian’s bill also seeks to boost battery storage in the state, taking energy generated during off-peak hours and holding it in reserve for when there’s greater consumer demand. It would also ensure that whatever electric power is generated from offshore wind in federal waters off the coast of Ocean City remains in Maryland, and it would seek to dedicate a greater portion of state energy taxes assessed on data centers to more relief for utility ratepayers.

Charkoudian conceded the complexity of her legislation, and said tweaks and amendments are still being made.

“When you have a hundred different agencies and stakeholders and people working on a bill, it’s never going to be perfect,” she said.

But most of the individuals who testified on the bill were generally supportive, though Frederick Hoover, chair of the Maryland Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities, warned it could lead to more battles over where to site clean energy installations in the state.

Ambitious as Charkoudian’s bill is, it may be subsumed by the forthcoming debate over the House and Senate leaders’ legislative package on energy, and Thursday’s hearing on the bill was remarkably speedy, all things considered.

In fact, the hearing about the other bill on the committee’s docket, to place limitations on the state’s STRIDE program to repair and improve natural gas infrastructure, was far lengthier and more contentious. The bill, from Del. Elizabeth Embry (D-Baltimore City), would require gas companies to focus on safety when making upgrades to gas pipelines and other infrastructure.

The STRIDE law, which took effect in 2013, provides incentives to gas utilities to make a range of infrastructure improvements, which are paid for with fees on ratepayers’ gas bills. But with utility bills rising, critics of STRIDE have argued that gas companies are pushing forward on infrastructure work that may not be necessary, adding needless costs to consumers’ bills — especially as the state looks to move away from fossil fuels.

“Utilities generate higher profits by spending extra money with the government’s approval,” said David Lapp, who heads the Maryland Office of People’s Counsel, which represents consumers’ interests on utility matters.

Proponents of the legislation said it would emphasize community safety while saving ratepayers money.

“This bill does not repeal STRIDE,” Embry told her colleagues Thursday. “It’s a modest bill. It makes modest changes to the current law.”

But gas companies — and some Republicans on the committee — made the opposite argument, and the Republicans also suggested that Embry’s bill, as the state pushes to meet strict climate mandates, is secretly designed to kill off the natural gas industry.

Mark Case, a vice president at Baltimore Gas & Electric, warned that limiting the program — and the surcharges — could hinder the gas companies’ ability to replace aging industry that could pose a danger to communities. He said that since the inception of STRIDE, the company has typically replaced about 42 miles of pipe a year.

“These are not 5-year-old pipes where we’re going in and saying, ‘let’s go replace them.’”

Washington Gas lobbyists came with Cynthia Quarterman, who was the administrator of the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration under former President Barack Obama. She said Maryland must “stay the course [with STRIDE] to catch up to other states” and that upgrading gas pipelines is “of the utmost importance.”

But Laurel Peltier, who assists low-income ratepayers through her work for AARP, told Maryland Matters that the STRIDE program has become perverted.

“The issue with gas delivery and STRIDE overall is, ratepayers have become ATMs and gas utilities have their PINs,” she said.

By Josh Kurtz