Baltimore-based US Wind Inc. is pledging $100,000 to Delaware’s Center for the Inland Bays (CIB).
The donation will go to the Delaware Center for the Inland Bays’ capital campaign for the James Farm Ecological Preserve master plan.
“We have a James Farm Ecological Preserve, which is located just north of Ocean View on Cedar Neck Road," said Chris Bason - the executive director of the CIB. "And it is 150-acres of very beautiful and immaculately restored coastal ecosystems. And the purpose of this preserve is to provide environmental education and recreation to residents and visitors of Sussex County.”
Bason commended US Wind’s commitment to clean, renewable energy and healthy coastlines. It’s currently developing an 80,000-acre federal wind farm lease area off the coast of Ocean City, Maryland.
The company submitted its plan to fully satisfy Maryland’s offshore-wind goals by providing an additional 1,200 megawatts with the full build-out of its Momentum Wind project.
Bason says the plan includes an educational campus on the preserve which will now be named the “US Wind Environmental Education Center at the James Farm Ecological Preserve.”
“So what this donation will do is - allow the facility to be named the US Wind Environmental Education Center at the James Farm Ecological Preserve," Bason said. "And it’s going to be a beautiful and unique facility that reflects the agricultural architectural heritage of the region. And it will help us to educate youth and adults for many years to come.”
Construction of the new center should be finished by the end of this year and Bason says Center of the Inland Bays has raised $1.2 million so far to cover the cost.
But he notes they are waiting on updated estimates from contractors and may have to raise additional money since the cost of labor and materials has risen dramatically over the past year.
