State finds ‘numerous’ problems on Synergics site
Nature By Timothy B. Wheeler, The Baltimore Sun
7:46 p.m. EDT, August 26, 2010
State environmental officials have halted construction on Maryland’s second industrial wind project after finding “numerous” erosion-control violations on the remote Garrett County mountain ridge where an Annapolis-based developer is putting up 20 turbines.
The Maryland Department of the Environment ordered Synergics Wind Energy and its contractor, White Construction, to stop work until they fix all the shortcomings in their measures to prevent mud from washing off the building site into nearby streams. The work shutdown, ordered Wednesday, comes a little more than three weeks after state inspectors first visited the site in response to a complaint from a nearby resident.
“They had four miles of mountaintop completely torn up and had minimal — I mean minimal — controls,” said Eric Robison, a contractor who lives on a different stretch of Backbone Mountain near Oakland. He said he contacted the state in late July after taking hundreds of photographs to document conditions at the construction site. “I was amazed at what they were doing.”
MDE spokesman Jay Apperson said inspectors found problems throughout the project, including missing and inadequate “silt fences” to filter sediment out of storm runoff whenever it rains. The state officials advised the companies Aug. 3 to stop grading and excavating until the controls were in place, and both agreed to do so. The contractor was allowed to continue other construction work, such as pouring concrete.
