[MassHistPres] Nantucket Sound Wind Farm

[Bjdurk at aol.com]

Coalition of Stakeholder Groups Announce Cape Wind  Lawsuits  
Native American Tribes, Commercial  Fishermen, Environmental Groups, Towns 
and Others Will File Suit to Bar  Industrial Wind Project from Nantucket 
Sound 
Hyannis, MA – A wide ranging coalition of stakeholder groups  will 
immediately file suit in response to Secretary Salazar’s ruling to approve  the Cape 
Wind project. 
“While the Obama Administration today dealt a blow to all of us who care  
deeply about preserving our most precious natural treasures – this fight is 
not  over,” said Audra Parker, president and CEO of the Alliance to Protect 
Nantucket  Sound. “Litigation remains the option of last resort. However, 
when the federal  government is intent on trampling the rights of Native 
Americans and the people  of Cape Cod, we must act. We will not stand by and allow 
our treasured public  lands to be marred forever by a corporate giveaway to 
private industrial energy  developers.” 
Lawsuits will be filed on behalf of a coalition of environmental groups –  
including the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, Three Bays Preservation,  
Animal Welfare Institute, Industrial Wind Action Group, Californians for  
Renewable Energy, Oceans Public Trust Initiative (a project of the 
International  Marine Mammal Project of the Earth Land Institute), Lower Laguna Madre  
Foundation – against the federal Fish and Wildlife Service and Minerals  
Management Service for violations of the Endangered Species Act.   
The Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, along with the Duke’s  
County/Martha’s Vineyard Fishermen Association, will also file suit against the  
federal Minerals Management Service for violations under the Outer Continental  
Shelf Lands Act. The Town of Barnstable has filed a notice of intent to file a 
 lawsuit on the same grounds. And the Wampanoag tribe is preparing to mount 
a  legal challenge to the project for violations of tribal rights. 
Additional legal  issues include violation of the National Environmental Policy Act, 
the Migratory  Bird Treaty Act, the Rivers and Harbors Act, the Clean Water 
Act, and the Outer  Continental Shelf Lands Act.   
Secretary Salazar’s decision ignores the recent positions taken against the 
 project by the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, the National 
Trust for  Historic Preservation, the Massachusetts Historical Commission and 
the National  Park Service, which ruled recently that Nantucket Sound was 
eligible for listing  on the National Register of Historic Places which, like 
our national parklands,  would provide it a higher level of protection from 
industrial development. 
The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) recommended that  
Secretary Salazar deny or relocate the proposed Cape Wind project because its  
effects would be “pervasive, destructive, and, in the instance of seabed  
construction, permanent.” The ACHP called on Secretary Salazar to either deny  
the project or relocate it to a nearby alternative such as the compromise  
location outside of Nantucket Sound approximately ten miles south of the  
proposed site. The compromise location, South of Tuckernuck Island, has gained  
the support of every stakeholder involved, including Native American tribal 
 leaders, state and federal historic preservation agencies, environmental 
groups,  cities and towns, elected officials, airpots, ferry lines, chambers 
of commerce  and many others. 
“It is a shame that the Obama Administration chose political expediency 
over  developing a project in an environmentally responsible place that can 
actually  be built,” said Parker. “The compromise location would have avoided 
years of  litigation and allowed this project to move forward.”  
Secretary Salazar left unaddressed the growing concerns in Massachusetts 
over  the project’s energy costs to ratepayers and its overall cost to 
taxpayers.  
Earlier this month Rhode Island rejected a deal between National Grid and 
an  offshore wind project that would have set a rate that was nearly triple 
the  current cost for electricity. The electric utility tapped to buy power 
from Cape  Wind, National Grid, has failed to reach a similar agreement on 
the cost to  ratepayers of Cape Wind’s energy.  
Most estimates have put the cost of Cape Wind energy at two to three times  
the current rate for conventional power. This comes on top of the $10 
billion  ISO New England recently announced would be necessary to upgrade the 
region’s  electrical grid and transmission facilities as a result of Cape Wind 
and other  wind projects. 
Massachusetts Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs Ian Bowles  
recently expressed concern over the project’s energy costs as did the state’s  
largest business group, the Associated Industries of Massachusetts.  
Consumer anger is also palpable. In a recent survey conducted by the  
University of Massachusetts, a majority of consumers said they would not pay  
more for electricity produced by wind turbines. Much of the support for wind  
energy was based on the false assumption that offshore wind will lower 
electric  bills. At the projected Cape Wind power rate, nearly 80 percent of 
respondents  registered opposition to the project.
 
 
In a message dated 4/28/2010 5:35:15 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
TuckerJ at amherstma.gov writes:

 
While there  is variation, in most marine environments the addition of 
almost any kind of  structure will substantially increase habitat for a wide 
range of  organisms.  In ecology, this is referred to as the “edge effect.”   
Studies in  of off-shore wind turbines in Denmark seem to support the 
notion that such  structures will have this effect: 
_http://greenenergyreporter.com/2010/01/boosting-offshore-winds-eco-image-on
e-fish-at-a-time/_ 
(http://greenenergyreporter.com/2010/01/boosting-offshore-winds-eco-image-one-fish-at-a-time/) .   
Oil rig  platforms in the Gulf of Mexico that have outlived their 
usefulness for  resource extraction are frequently left in place rather than being 
dismantled,  because they produce such useful habitat for marine life, 
including for  species that are otherwise declining in the area.  California is  
considering the same practice.  Decommissioned ships and other larger  
structures (such as “tire reefs”—numerous old tires lashed together) have been  
deliberately sunk to serve this purpose for decades. 
Combined  with new regulations, the wind turbine structures might actually 
protect the  sea floor, interrupting the patterns of net trawlers.  In their 
effort to  gather every last fish they can, net trawlers currently scour 
the sea floor,  damaging its ecological function, and injuring or destroying 
any surface  archeological features that might be present.  Their ‘
clear-cutting’  approach to fishing has resulted in the serious depletion of many  
species.  Interrupting this practice could allowed these species the  
opportunity to recover. 
So maybe not  all change is bad.   
Jonathan  Tucker 
Planning  Director 
Amherst  Planning Department 
4 Boltwood  Avenue, Town Hall 
Amherst,  MA  01002 
(413)  259-3040 
_tuckerj at amherstma.gov_ (mailto:tuckerj at amherstma.gov)    
 
 
From:  masshistpres-bounces at cs.umb.edu 
[mailto:masshistpres-bounces at cs.umb.edu] On  Behalf Of McClure, Veronica
Sent: Wednesday, April 28, 2010 5:06  PM
To: Bjdurk at aol.com; jworden at swwalaw.com;  masshistpres at cs.umb.edu
Cc: roberta_lane at nthp.org;  Forum-L at lists.nationaltrust.org
Subject: Re: [MassHistPres]  Nantucket Sound Wind Farm

Do we  really know how the underwater construction of these turbines will 
affect the  seabed and the creatures in it, the water, and the air? 
I  understand that there are offshore turbines in other locations and have 
heard  them used to justify this installation, but seems to me that the 
features of  each seabed, the methods of construction (will there be blasting?), 
and the  differences in organisms from place to place should caution 
against  automatically assuming that if it works in one location, it will work in 
any  other. 
I’m  not an expert in these things, but that doesn’t mean I can’t wonder 
about  them. 
Veronica  McClure  

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