Posted on 08/22/2003 2:28:10 AM PDT by kattracks
(CNSNews.com) - One of the nation's most beautiful seaside resorts is the site of a battle over a wind power project that has drawn opposition from famous liberals like Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy and former CBS news anchorman Walter Cronkite. They oppose the project even though it espouses one of their favorite goals - renewable energy alternatives.
Although the New England energy company Cape Wind Associates has won an important victory in federal court on the controversy, a group devoted to preserving the Nantucket Island landscape near Cape Cod, Mass., has a pending lawsuit challenging the Army Corps of Engineers' authority to issue a permit for construction of the wind farm.
U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Tauro this week sided with Cape Wind Associates in a lawsuit filed by 10 Massachusetts taxpayers attempting to stop the project. The suit had contended that the construction of a test tower, operating in the area since last year and used to gauge design elements for the farm including wind, waves and current, required a state permit. Tauro disagreed.
"As the construction of a scientific testing tower does not fall within the Commonwealth's jurisdiction to regulate fisheries, no license from the Commonwealth was required," Tauro wrote in his Aug. 19 opinion.
Cape Wind hailed the decision, saying attempts like the failed lawsuit represented an effort to stifle scientific research and informed debate on the merits of the wind farm. The company claims its wind farm detractors are rich, not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) elitists.
"What we have here are a bunch of well-heeled NIMBY opponents who extol the greatness of renewable energy at their cocktail parties," Mark Rodgers, Cape Wind's communications director, told CNSNews.com. He added that wind power is the closest among all renewable energy sources to competing with fossil fuels.
Among those opposed to the farm is Kennedy, despite the fact that he claimed to support wind energy in a recent op-ed column in the Cape Cod Times
"I strongly support renewable energy, including wind energy, as a means of reducing our dependence on foreign oil and protecting the environment," Kennedy wrote, noting other coastal wind energy projects underway in Maryland, Delaware, New York, New Jersey and Virginia. "These projects hold significant promise, but they also raise significant questions about the private development of public resources and the potential impact on local ecosystems and economies."
Other opponents include local residents like Cronkite and David McCullough, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of John Adams.
"I'm not against wind turbines," McCullough was quoted by the Associated Press as saying on Aug. 17. "I'm against 130 of them over 400 feet tall right smack in the middle of one of the most beautiful places in America. That's a hundred feet taller than the Capitol Dome in Washington."
The wind farm opponents are also concerned about the lack of formal federal licensing jurisdiction over the particular site Cape Wind Associates has chosen. Because of the location, approximately six miles offshore in federal waters, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, not the state, has jurisdiction.
Isaac Rosen, executive director of the Alliance to Save Nantucket Sound, explained that projects like offshore oil rigs are covered under the Outer Continental Shelf Land Act, unlike wind farms, which he said Congress never considered when the act was originally passed in 1953.
Rosen said the lack of comprehensive federal regulation is a valid concern, and he likened Cape Wind's site selection to a "gold rush" derived from "throwing darts at a map" that exploits the "loophole" in federal regulations.
"I'm an environmentalist who works hard to protect the Cape," Rosen told CNSNews.com. "There are some groups who want renewable energy at any cost."
According to Kennedy, efforts to create federal regulatory policy for offshore wind farms is being held up under "strong opposition" in Washington, D.C., because of the potential such regulation would have on other energy industries.
"The energy industry and its allies in Congress and the White House are automatically opposed to any public interest regulation of wind energy development on the Outer Continental Shelf," Kennedy wrote. "But their primary interest is not in fostering renewable energy, but in preventing the imposition of any rules that could be extended to other types of energy development."
However, Rodgers questioned the motives of Cape Wind's opponents, noting that the Alliance "didn't even exist" until the wind farm project first appeared. He said opponents of the Nantucket wind farm project try to portray themselves as a working class group but are actually some of the most "well-heeled" members in New England.
"What he (Rosen) doesn't say is that the Army Corps of Engineers, along with 17 other environmental regulatory agencies, are conducting their analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the toughest review available," Rodgers said, adding that he believes the NEPA to be even stricter than the regulatory review of coal manufacturing in Massachusetts.
"These same people have been clamoring for renewable energy. Well, this is where the rubber meets the road," Rodgers said. "If these agencies determine that this project is in the public interest, then we would supply three-quarters of the electricity in the Nantucket Island region.
The Alliance to Save Nantucket Sound has its pending lawsuit, challenging the Army Corps of Engineers' authority to issue a permit for the wind farm, also before Judge Tauro's court. No hearing date has been set.
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Why isn't my backyard as beautiful or anyone's back yard just as beautiful?
That comment really does demonstrate this is an issue for the rich and powerful just because it is their back yard, and they believe they're privileged.
The also believe in seizing the land of others for their playgrounds, as evidenced by the national parks they've made in areas where people already had homes. (The Smoky Mountains are one example.)
In any case, you put windfarms where wind conditions are optimal.
Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
Hell, these people think AMWR is beautiful. Why don't they just learn to love the sight of those turbines? Isn't beauty in the eye of the beholder and don't they hold renewable energy in high regard? (Surely they can't be lying about that, can they?) The people of Holland have made windmills a big tourist attraction. Why can't the people around Nantucket?
Anyway, the darn things are going to be six miles off shore. How visible can they be from there? To hear them scream you would think they were right there in the surf.
Translation: Err aah, don't forget, serfs, the err aah, Federal government owns the wind, and err aah, you the peon capitalist are not to profit from it, err aah, only government-owned monopolies where I can get my fat, alcohol-soaked, rapist fingers on the profits...boy, pour me another scotch, err aah...
Well done. Very...
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