[MassHistPres] Nantucket Sound Wind Farm

[james hadley]

Please. This is not a ligitimate forum for this topic, and I don't want to have to keep cleaning it out of my inbox. Will Mass HisCom please say something about this. It is politics, not preservation, on both sides.

Jim Hadley

Chair, Orleans Historical Commission
 


From: Bjdurk at aol.com
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2010 18:04:22 -0400
To: TuckerJ at amherstma.gov; veronica_mcclure at harvard.edu; 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


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-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    
 
 
 


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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