The questions are blowing in the wind

 

By Jaci Barton, 8/28/2002

 

IT SHOULD surprise no one that the environmental community supports the increased use of alternative energy to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. What has surprised many observers - particularly those off Cape Cod - is that the environmental and wildlife protection community is not falling into line to support the massive Cape Wind project being proposed for Nantucket Sound.

 

 

Wildlife protection advocates need to be taken seriously. Concerns that the turbines will turn a migratory path for a half-million birds into a potential killing field are very real. Nantucket Sound, designated as an essential fish habitat, has evolved into the open sandy shoal that we know today. Disturbance by construction and conversion to a habitat dominated by structures could wreak havoc on fish, marine animals, and the organisms they feed upon.

 

The environmental issues that have been raised about the project need to be dealt with up front, not after the fact. The impact on the fishery is not a casual concern. The private use of public land is not an inconsequential issue. And the central question - How much energy are we really going to harness, and at what price? - needs to be fully explored before we start drilling into the seabed.

 

Land use advocates are concerned that while we have been protecting the land from development, 170 40-story structures are being proposed for the sea around us. And unlike developments on land where zoning, building codes, and land use policy are designed to protect our fragile resources, in Nantucket Sound there are no such controls.

 

What has gotten lost in the promotion of this energy project is the need for a state and national policy about wind power development - particularly offshore, industrial-sized energy plants.

 

Even as the Army Corps of Engineers seems to be fast-tracking the Cape Wind project, it admits that it doesn't know whether Horseshoe Shoal is the best location for these turbines. Making that determination is really not the corps' mission, but surely it is an issue that the public has a right to address before Cape Wind gets carte blanche to occupy 28 square miles of a public resource.

 

Some in the environmental community support the project because they believe it would reduce the use of fossil fuels. But where is it written that the ''green'' energy generated here will replace the ''dirty'' energy currently being generated? Wind turbines don't work where the wind is unreliable and intermittent, so oil, gas, and nuclear facilities will need to remain on standby, not replaced.

 

Many in the environmental community have labored long and hard on protecting our ocean preserves. Will the power these turbines generate in the middle of Nantucket Sound really offset the cost to our ocean habitat? Is the dedication to alternative energy so intense that it effectively discounts all the other environmental values that would be sacrificed if Nantucket Sound and other fragile areas are industrialized? Can we be indifferent to the fact that such offshore wind proposals are proliferating around our coast without any program or set of standards to guide their development? Aren't we concerned that there is no authority for the federal government to grant the property interest in a manner that would protect the public trust? Should the Cape Wind project be allowed to set the precedent?

 

Is alternative energy so important that all of these other considerations are purely secondary?

 

What we don't know about the Cape Wind project outweighs what we know a hundredfold. There is a growing view among people who could be backers that this project is too big, too rushed, and located in the wrong place.

 

Proponents of the Cape Wind project don't have the support of the environmental and wildlife coalitions or the vast majority of Cape Cod residents and visitors.

 

Sadly, the result of this controversy may well be that the alternative energy movement will be set back because of its disregard for other environmental issues and for an open public process.

 

Jaci Barton is executive director of the Barnstable Land Trust.

 

This story ran on page A23 of the Boston Globe on 8/28/2002.

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