ILC Dover LP, Newark, plans to break ground on a new 90,000 sq ft manufacturing site located in Gliwice, Poland.

Gliwice is a university and industrial city in southern Polland.

in response to continued growth within its life sciences business. The facility equipped with 20,000 square feet of cleanroom capability will manufacture initially single-use powder bags, single-use liquid bags, and single-use fluid transfer assemblies.

The new site will provide redundant supply capabilities and reduce the lead times for its European and Asian customers. Manufacturing will be consistent with the Company’s global quality system.

According to the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, visitors to Delaware Seashore State Park will see an increase in activity in the coming months as US Wind and Ørsted conduct research and collect data to determine the path forward for their wind projects.

The wind power companies had earlier confirmed that survey vessels will be in the area.

Both companies plan to update and refresh information collected in the Indian River Bay in 2016 and 2017 and to conduct geotechnical work in the Atlantic and at some land-based locations. Separately, a Maryland study has been announced on the environmental effects of wind farms.

It is likely that transmission lines from the Ørsted project will come inland in Delaware, possibly at the current site of the Indian River power plant. Indian River’s last coal-fired unit is slated for retirement

President Joe Biden will fly out of Wilmington-New Castle Airport at around 9 a.m. Monday after a quiet weekend in Delaware.

He flew into Delaware on Friday after a trip to Kentucky, where he called on Congress to pass legislation like the Bipartisan Innovation Act, which aims to boost domestic manufacturing.

The president toured a manufacturing site in the Blue Grass State before spending the weekend at his home near Greenville.

Biden remained in Washington, D.C., last weekend to attend the White House correspondents’ dinner.

Despite reports of higher case numbers and hospitalizations,  the Centers for Disease Control still lists Delaware as having low spread of Covid-19 cases. 

Click here for a link to the widget.

All three counties in Delaware are currently in the green zone, according to the CDC’s county widget.

By contrast, counties in New England and the Northeast are now in the CDC’s red zone, which indicates a risk of a high number of hospitalizations that could overwhelm local health care systems. (See accompanying map). In red-zone counties, the CDC recommends that people wear masks indoors.

Blamed for the surge in cases are new Covid-19 variants that are more transmissible than their predecessors.

The average Delaware gas price remained stable on Thursday after rising to $4.40 per gallon for regular, up about a dime from a week ago. It comes less than two months after prices broke the nearly 14-year record set in 2008. The price of diesel fuel is nearing $6 a gallon.

Nationally, the average retail price for a gallon of regular, self-service gasoline is two cents lower than the Delaware average. Delaware gas prices are typically below the national figure. Thursday gas prices can be a few centers lower, due to promotions at Shell and other stations.

Reasons for the disparity, despite Delaware’s lower gas tax, remain unclear but may center on tight supplies. See earlier opinion column.

Delaware average gas prices

Delaware still has poor air quality days

The Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control reports that air quality has improved since the 1970s/

DNREC maintains a network of 11 permanent air monitoring sites throughout the state to track pollutants.

“Part of DNREC’s mission is to ensure clean air for all Delawareans. Clean air is especially important for our most vulnerable populations: children, older people, and people living with health conditions,” said DNREC Secretary Shawn Garvin. “Our monitoring network data shows our air quality is good overall, but good is not good enough. DNREC is committed to working continuously to make our air quality better.”

The air today is cleaner than when EPA first implemented control measures, known as the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), under the Clean Air Act in the early 1970s. The MLK station, for example, monitors the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s six pollutants of greatest concern under the NAAQS: ozone, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and two sizes of particulate matter.

More than 2,000 lower income Delaware residents qualify for reimbursement under a settlement with tax preparation software giant Intuit.

New York Attorney General Letitia James and Delaware AG Kathy Jennings announced the multistate agreement with the owner of TurboTax, on allegations of deceiving millions of low-income Americans into paying for tax services that should have been free.

Intuit will pay $141 million in restitution to millions of consumers across the nation who were charged. The company did not admit wrongdoing. In Delaware, that works out to about $400,000 spread among more than 2,000 tax filers.

In addition, Intuit agreed to suspend TurboTax’s heavily advertised “free, free, free” ad campaign that lured customers with promises of free tax preparation services, only to force payment. All 50 states and the District of Columbia signed the agreement.

GT USA Wilmington welcomed the MV Pottersgracht, a general cargo ship and its load of 78 wind turbine blades. The blades, manufactured in Canada, are destined for a GE project in West Virginia

The Port of Wilmington carefully and successfully unloaded the wind turbine blades that are over 200 feet in length and weigh more than 13.5 tons each and transported them the short distance to the on-port storage area.

“We have handled wind blades many times now at the Port of Wilmington, but we never take anything for granted. It is always a delicate operation when handling cargo of this size and weight, so we work diligently with our International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) partners, the vessel’s crew, and the trucking company, American Transport Systems,” said Joe Cruise, CEO at GT USA Wilmington.