The Love Creek Marina at high tide.

Earlier today we found out that the research vessel Russel W. Peterson, which has been studying the potential impact of a wind farm on birds for Bluewater Wind, was in distress and needed Coast Guard intervention. The vessel ran aground in Bethany. We’ve since learned that one of the two crew members on the R/V Russel W. Peterson is dead. Ken Hayes, President of Aqua Survey, the company who owned the vessel released this statement:

This morning the liftboat Russell W. Peterson sent out a distress signal to the US Coast Guard.

The Peterson had been offshore Rehoboth Beach, DE, studying bird migration. The Coast Guard
is to be commended for dispatching rescuers by both sea and air. The Peterson was staffed by
two captains. Both were removed by the Coast Guard. We have been informed that one of the
captains did not survive the ordeal. Aqua Survey is not releasing names at this point. Our hearts
and prayers are with the family and friends of the lost mariner.

Aqua Survey will work closely with the Coast Guard and other agencies to safely and quickly
salvage the vessel.

And this is from Peter Mandelstam, President, Bluewater Wind:

“Everyone here at Bluewater Wind is deeply saddened by this tragic occurrence. Our thoughts and prayers are with the captain’s family, friends, and loved ones.”

The public parking lot at the end of Savannah Road in Lewes. It’s all sand.

A tree blocking the eastbound lane of King’s Highway, that’s the road to Cape Henlopen High School and the District office if you’re coming from Route 1 north. School was on time, but then around 8:30 a.m., an hour after the start of the day for many schools, the automated call came from the District Office that you shouldn’t send your child to school if there was flooding in your area…little late, fellas.

Downtown Milton.

The end of Old Landing Road.

Route 1 by Five Points.

The ocean at the Indian River Inlet.

A snowplow keeping Route 1 directly north of the Indian River Inlet Bridge free of sand.

The ocean in Rehoboth Beach, Rehoboth did a good job weathering the storm so far.

A small windmill on a home in Rehoboth cranking out power like a champ.

And, the R/V Russell W. Peterson, the research vessel that Bluewater Wind launched to study the possible impact of their wind farm on avian life, has run into trouble:

From WGMD News:

The Coast Guard responded to a distress call from a research vessel off the coast of Rehoboth Beach. Authorities say two people aboard the Russell W. Peterson activated an electronic positioning radio beacon and reported that the boat was breaking up and taking on water about 14 miles off the coast. A helicopter crew from the Coast Guard air station in Atlantic City, N.J., was on the scene, and two small boats from Cape May and Ocean City were also en route. The vessel, named after a former Delaware governor active in environmental issues, was christened in Wilmington just six weeks ago and was being used by Bluewater Wind to study migratory bird routes in connection with the proposed offshore wind farm.

More to come as the tide rolls in…

At a special meeting on Tuesday, May 6, the Indian River Board of Education hired Robert Powell to serve as interim principal of Sussex Central High School for the remainder of the 2007-2008 school year. In addition, the board assigned Assistant Superintendent Gary Brittingham to the school for the remainder of the year.
“The Board of Education has put Sussex Central High School in good hands. Mr. Powell and Mr. Brittingham are competent and experienced administrators who will assure that the final six weeks of the school year run smoothly,” Superintendent Susan Bunting said. “We are especially pleased to have Mr. Powell back in our ranks. He is a talented educator who will work extremely hard to keep students and staff focused on instruction as the school year comes to a close.”

Powell spent 26 years as a teacher and administrator in the Indian River School District before retiring from the Woodbridge School District in 2005. He began as a health teacher at Selbyville Middle School in 1975 and received the district’s Teacher of the Year Award in 1980. That same year, he became assistant principal at Sussex Central Middle School and served in that capacity until 1989, when he was named the school’s principal. He was principal of Sussex Middle until 2001 and was named Delaware’s Principal of the Year in 1999. He accepted a principal’s position in the Woodbridge School District in 2001.  

Powell has recently served as a hearing officer for the Indian River School District. He will begin his duties at Sussex Central High School on Thursday, May 8.

Not that you would know it from any of the other news coverage out there, but Noe Gonzalo Mendez-Perez, the deceased driver of the Chevy Surburban that was involved in a horrific crash Saturday night at the intersection of Route 9 and Route 30 in Georgetown, was here illegally. Also, Apoliar Gutierrez Santico, the man who fled the scene, was here illegally. From WGMD News:

State police have charged a Laurel man with leaving the scene of the five-vehicle accident near Georgetown that killed four people. Police say 38-year-old Apoliar Gutierrez-Santico surrendered to police Monday morning. Other charges against him include driving without a license and failure to have proof of insurance. Police say he was driving a car that was struck during the chain reaction crash. The crash happened Saturday night at the intersection of Routes 9 and 30. Three of those killed were inside an SUV that rear-ended a car, sending it into the car driven by Gutierrez-Santico. His car also struck another vehicle. The driver of the first car, 29-year-old Rolanda Ayers of Lewes, also died. The operator of the SUV has been identified as 30 year-old Noe Gonzalo Mendez-Perez of Georgetown. Both Gutierrez-Santico and Mendez-Perez were in the country illegally. LINK 

The two passengers of Mendez-Perez’s SUV have not been identified yet. They were burned beyond recognition. Everyone else involved in the crash was a citizen of the United States, including Rolanda Ayers of Lewes who was also killed.

According to Cpl. Wes Barnett of the Delaware State Police, the cause of the crash is still being investigated.

From all accounts to date, it appears that Mendez-Perez failed to stop at the intersection, hit the cars in front of him, and triggered the crash. Why? We don’t know. But this is where we need to really stop and understand why it’s so important that people who are in the United States are here legally.

What if Mendez-Perez simply had poor eyesight, something that would have been caught at the DMV, something that could have been corrected with glasses? What if he had a history of traffic problems, like maybe a string of DUIs? Maybe Mendez-Perez was someone who wouldn’t have qualified for a driver’s license in Delaware even if he was a citizen.

The situation is unacceptable.We need to have a population of people living under the same laws. We also need a population that goes through the same processes to get certain privileges, like a driver’s license. It’s that simple.

From the AP:

The Senate energy committee has approved a draft report critical of a proposed wind farm off the Delaware coast. The panel voted 4-2 in favor after dropping a recommendation that the Senate vote to instruct the legislature’s controller general to vote against the wind farm, which would kill the idea. 

The panel instead recommended that the Senate instruct the controller general to give serious weight to its report.

Stanton Democrat Karen Peterson, who voted against the report, said the hearings on which it is based were biased.  Three of four state agencies delayed a vote after controller general Russell Larson said there was no consensus in the General Assembly.

I spoke with Representative John Kowalko (D-Newark) and he was to the point:

“I consider the report bogus.” ~ Representative John Kowalko

I’m sure there will be more to come…

Word from Dover is that House Concurrent Resolution 38 has just passed the Delaware House with 25 votes.  That is the legislation that recommends Controller Russ Larson approve the power purchase agreement between Bluewater Wind and Delmarva Power. You can read HCR 38 HERE.

Now it goes to the Senate, where a certain Senator can simply toss it in his desk drawer and make it go away, or the Senate can take a stand…

UPDATE: Tommywonk was there and has all of the details, including the fact that all of the Sussex County Representatives voted AGAINST the measure except for 14th District Representative Pete Schwartzkopf and 41st District Representative Greg Hastings.

If you have a cell phone, or any phone, you may have noticed that lately you’ve been getting an enormous number of phone calls from a company warning you that “this is the last call you’ll” get regarding your auto warranty which is about to expire.

If only. If only that were the “last call” on the topic of my auto warranty it would be a great day in Sunnydale! But NOOOOO! You may receive that “last call” warning two to three times a day, every day as I did. Well, finally someone has decided to act aggressively to prevent this type of illegal telemarketing.

This information was retrieved from www.verizon.com, I’ll highlight the key parts since it is rather long:

03/26/2008

BASKING RIDGE, NJ — Verizon Wireless said today it has filed a lawsuit to stop unknown telemarketers from calling its customers and employees with an offer of an extended car warranty. The lawsuit, filed in New Jersey Superior Court, alleges the telemarketers illegally used an autodialer to reach Verizon Wireless customers and used “spoofing” techniques to mask the origin of the calls.

The lawsuit alleges that Caller ID showed calls were made from a variety of numbers with 281, 614, 801, and 562 area codes. But, when Verizon Wireless customers and employees attempted to call the numbers found on Caller ID, they generally heard a fast busy signal, indicating a non-working number.

“Telemarketers are using increasingly sophisticated methods, such as illegal autodialing, to harass our customers,” said Steven E. Zipperstein, vice president and general counsel of Verizon Wireless. “Whatever the method, these unlawful telemarketing calls are an annoyance to our customers and invade their privacy, and we will continue to use every weapon in our legal arsenal to stop this activity and protect our customers.”

In the lawsuit, Verizon Wireless says that, beginning in January 2008, more than 2 million of its customers and employees received calls on their wireless telephones with a pre-recorded voice message indicating that the recipient’s car warranty was about to expire, and encouraging them to press “1” for more information. When a recipient presses “1”, he or she is connected to a person who asks for the make and model of the car. However, if the recipient asks for information about the company offering the policy, the representative simply hangs up and ends the call.

The lawsuit alleges violations of the Federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which makes it illegal to use an autodialer to make calls to wireless phones, as well as state fraud and privacy laws. By filing the lawsuit, Verizon Wireless will be able to use the discovery process to help identify the currently unknown telemarketers, and to get them to halt their practices.

Verizon Wireless’ record of protecting customer privacy puts the company at the forefront of the U.S. wireless industry. Over the past several years, Verizon Wireless has won permanent injunctions against individuals and companies that have engaged in illegal telemarketing and text message spamming to Verizon Wireless customers, and against those who have attempted to obtain information about Verizon Wireless customers to sell to third parties.

Finally, someone else has raised a fuss about these annoying calls! Hopefully with the power of Verizon behind it, this suit will put an end to the problem… until they figure out a legal loophole and start back up again.

News Release from DP & L, The Delaware Electric Cooperative and Old Dominion Electric Cooperative:

The Delaware Electric Cooperative and Old Dominion Electric Cooperative havejoined Delmarva Power’s competitive bidding process to acquire land-based wind energy to supply their customers, the companies announced today.    

The utilities made the announcement after Delmarva Power received more than 35 price bids from land-based wind developers from across the region. Early indications from the bids are that buying land-based wind power through this competitive process could save customers an estimated 50 percent compared to Bluewater Wind’s current proposal to Delmarva Power for a 25-year contract. Final bids from wind providers are due at the end of March. The utilities will conduct a thorough analysis of the bids. The analysis will likely be complete by the end of April.

In addition to a lower price, most of the onshore bids have no built-in price escalators. The Bluewater Wind proposal, by comparison, automatically increases the price to customers by 2.5 percent each year, starting in January 2008.

Onshore wind energy provides consumers with the same environmental benefits as offshore wind energy but at significantly less cost, in part because of the many costs associated with building and maintaining power generation and transmission equipment in the ocean’s harsh and corrosive environment.

“We are pleased to join with the Delaware Electric Cooperative and the entire family of Old Dominion Electric Cooperatives in this groundbreaking process to bring clean, affordable renewable energy to the region up to five years ahead of any offshore proposal,” said Delmarva Power President Gary Stockbridge. “Together we can achieve considerable savings for our customers, establish a long-term source of renewable energy for both Delaware and the region, while doing what’s right to help protect the environment. The addition of the family of Old Dominion Cooperatives to Delmarva’s ongoing wind power bidding process should expand the growth of wind energy throughout the entire Delmarva Peninsula and the Commonwealth of Virginia. This is an exciting day for the development of renewable energy in the region,” Stockbridge said.   Read it all HERE

A couple things off the top of my head:

1. This doesn’t satisfy the HB 6 requirement of Delaware based energy generation. 
2. This brings no new jobs to the state, no new industry, no new educational opportunities.  
3. Can Gary Stockbridge explain how, “This is an exciting day for the development of renewable energy in the region,” when the only thing “the region” is doing is purchasing power from other states? Isn’t it an exciting day for renewable energy in other states? 
4. There’s only so much land based wind power available, and as other energy companies in other states start purchasing it, the price can only go up. 
5. I admire the Cooperatives for thinking ahead.   House Bill 6, which compelled DP&L to enter into a long term contract with a price sustainable Delaware based energy utility to avoid crushing their residential and small business customers again, did not apply to the Cooperatives. 

It didn’t apply to the Cooperatives because the Coops were already buying long term contracts and not smacking down their customers with harsh rate increases.Or to put it in easy to understand terms: They were smart.  

The public spoke out tonight in Dover at the House Energy and Natural Resources hearing over two House Concurrent Resolutions dealing with the proposed off shore wind farm. HCR 38 would bring the project to the House floor and if passed, would basically tell Controller Russ Larson that the House wants the wind farm. The Senate would have to say the same thing, too, so don’t get too excited. HCR 40 would spread the cost of the wind farm to every Delaware energy user, even people who may not actually be getting electricity from the wind farm.

Things got interesting during the public testimony over HCR 38 because one of the Representatives on the committee, an alleged “yes” vote, apparently had to bail early, which meant that if all of the wind farm supporters who were slated to speak got up and used their luxurious 3 minutes of time, they could possibly lose a precious vote.

So instead of speaking, supporters simply stood up, asked that the committee release the legislation to the full House for a vote, and yielded their time. HCR 38 passed out of committee, so did HCR 40…incidentally…there was only one person who got up and spoke out against the project, Delmarva Power and Light President Gary Stockbridge….

More to come…and you know it’s all gonna be good….

Delaware State Senator George Bunting (D) has called on former Sussex Republican Chair, and blogger-wanna-be-governor  Dave Burris to publicly apologize to John Atkins and his family for referring to Atkins as  a “disgraced piece of human garbage”.

 

“This comment is unacceptable in any forum” , said Bunting while noting that this kind of commentary reflects on Atkins young children.  “Dave Burris wasn’t raised to make these kinds of comments; he wasn’t brought up that way”

 

Will Burris follow Mr. Buntings request, and apologize?

Bunting made his comments on Mondays Dan Gaffney Show.  (92.7 WGMD)