By J.R. Pegg

YARMOUTH PORT, Massachusetts, October 17, 2002 (ENS) - Controversy swirling around the environmental impact of a proposed 170 turbine wind farm less than six miles off the coast of Cape Cod has pitted environmentalists against one another and sounded an early warning that development of offshore wind energy is not going to be easy.

No one doubts that harnessing wind for energy offers great potential for the production of clean renewable energy, but this is clearly an industry in its infancy. According to industry data, wind energy accounts for less than one percent of U.S. electricity generation. U.S. wind energy generating capacity, which is approximately 4,261 megawatts, is spread out across more than 30 states, with California and Texas leading the way. All of this capacity, however, is from wind farms that are on land.

"Offshore wind is probably the largest renewable energy resource that we have in the Northeast and has been developed quite successfully in Europe with no reported, significant environmental problems to date," said Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) Energy program director Alan Nogee. "[This proposal] ought to go forward here if there aren't any significant environmental impacts discovered that can't be mitigated."

Simply determining that impact, however, is the source of much debate and has started a legal battle over the nation's largest renewable energy project.

Cape Wind Associates has proposed the construction of a wind farm that consists of 170 turbines, each 250 feet high, spread out across a 28 square mile area in Nantucket Sound.

X marks the approximate location of the proposed Cape Wind Farm on this satellite photo of Cape Cod. (Photo courtesy NASA' Johnson Space Center)

The wind farm, the company argues, will be capable of producing up to 420 megawatts of energy, enough to satisfy at least half of energy needs of Cape Cod and the Islands. The site on Horseshoe Shoal, according to Cape Wind president Jim Gordon, is ideal for this renewable energy project.

"Six miles off the coast of Hyannis is an inexhaustible, awesome supply of wind," Gordon said. "It has some of the best offshore wind resources in the U.S. In addition, the site is a shallow shoal that is away from the main shipping channels, away from ferry routes, and it is out of the air flight path."

A vocal group of local citizens and environmental groups adamantly oppose the construction of a wind farm in what many deem one of the nation's most beautiful bodies of water. The project, opponents say, is too big, too close to the shore and will irrevocably damage the shoals, endanger wildlife and harm the region's economy and quality of life.

"They are coming into the middle of Cape Cod's economic engine, into what we consider to be our Grand Canyon," said Isaac Rosen, executive director of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound. "The last thing anybody wants is to see it industrialized."

The Alliance, which has a wide range of allies including the Ocean Conservancy, the Earth Institute, the International Fund for Animals, and the International Wildlife Coalition, has filed suit in federal court challenging Cape Wind's right to a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit to build the data collection tower. Another group, the Ten Taxpayers Citizens Group, has filed a similar suit.

Round one in the legal battle went to Cape Wind on October 9 when a U.S. District Court denied a motion by the Ten Taxpayers Citizens Group for a restraining order to prevent the company from constructing a 197 foot tower in Nantucket Sound. The tower is needed, Gordon said, for the company to collect data needed for state and federal environmental studies required for approval to build the proposed 170 turbine wind farm.

A Vestas wind turbine at Hull Municipal Lighting Plant, Hull, Massachusetts, north of Cape Cod. This turbine provides enough electricity to power the street lights of Hull. (Photo by Doug Welch courtesy of Hull Municipal Lighting Plant)

"This data doesn't exist," Gordon said. "If it did, and was accurate enough for us to demonstrate the feasibility of the project and answer questions in the environmental review, then we wouldn't be spending $2 million on this project."

Cape Wind is nearly finished with the data tower, Gordon said, and the company hopes to begin collecting the required data before the end of the year.

No date has been set for the lawsuits, which argue that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers should never have given Cape Wind a permit for the tower in the first place.

"The central point in the suits is a complaint that the Army Corps illegally issued the permit because one of its regulations is a requirement that developers own the resource they want to build on," Rosen said. "Cape Wind can't make that claim."

The tower will damage the shoals, Rosen argued, and the data can be gathered in other ways that don't require a permanent structure, such as with barges. The desire for the tower, he added, is about precedent, not data.

"This is a corporate land grab," Rosen said. "These developers are trying to swoop down, stick a shovel in a public resource and claim it as their own without having to go through a rigorous review process. This tower is not just about data, we think these developers just want a precedent for taking over a resource and assuming squatters rights."

"The reason they are doing it here is for money," Rosen claimed. "The site is fairly sheltered, fairly shallow and close enough to land that they don't have to run the cables all that far. And beyond three miles is federal water, and there are no laws on the books governing the use of the outer continental shelf for uses other than oil, gas and minerals."

"Fishermen support alternative energy resources, but we strenuously object to this project. It will eliminate prime fishing ground," said Ron Borjeson, who represents 3,000 members of the Massachusetts Fishermen's Partnership and the Massachusetts Commercial Fishermen's Association.

Cape Wind says siting, construction and operations of the wind park are designed to ensure that the wind park "co-exists successfully with fish and the fishing industry." The towers would be spaced at least a 1/3 mile to a 1/2 mile apart, "allowing most commercial fishing vessels to navigate without obstruction."

Rosen said the flurry of new proposals for offshore wind farms proves that developers want to get projects underway before a federal framework for offshore wind is fully determined. There are currently more than 20 proposed wind farms for areas off the coast of the Eastern U.S.

View of what the wind farm would look like from Cotuit, 5.6 miles away. Environmental Design & Research, a consulting firm, took photos from several points on Cape Cod and superimposed the entire wind turbine array. (Photo courtesy Cape Wind)

UCS and others share concern about the framework for approving offshore wind farms, Nogee said, but "we don't think this project should be held up because of that."

UCS, along with Greenpeace, Clean Water Action and other environmental and grassroots organizations, have thrown support behind Cape Wind's efforts to determine the validity of their proposed wind farm.

"We believe that the environmental studies to determine whether this is a good offshore site ought to go forward," Nogee said. "We've supported the test tower, and like most of the groups who are supportive of moving forward, we can't take a final position until all of the environmental studies are completed."

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2002. All rights reserved.