The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has issued an environmental assessment supporting lease sales for wind energy farms in about 185,000 acres of the Atlantic Ocean off Brunswick County, N.C., but it is by no means certain wind power generated there will come ashore in North Myrtle Beach.

The announcement shifts the attention from actions taken by the city and the North Strand Coastal Wind Team to position North Myrtle Beach as a wind power center and puts it into hands in Columbia, Moncks Corner and Washington, D.C.

The city and the Wind Team have worked together to put up land-based wind turbines, study and educate the public about the benefits -- environmental and economic -- of being a wind power center, declare the city a wind power economic zone, and endorse the installation of a wind power cable conduit parallel to a stormwater ocean outfall pipe.