Town urged to state official position on wind farm
BY PETER B. BRACE
Now is the time for Nantucket officials to generate their official stance on Cape Wind's proposed wind farm for Nantucket Sound.

Jim Coyne, the energy consultant hired by the town to help the Board of Selectmen and the Nantucket Planning & Economic Development Commission understand the implications of the project and make intelligent comments, told a joint meeting of these boards on Monday night to get their statements written soon.

Coyne urged the selectmen and the Planning Commissioners to get going on Nantucket's official position on Cape Wind's project because the Minerals Management Service, the lead permitting agency currently reviewing Cape Wind's proposal, is going to be issuing its Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) this spring. Though a 60- day public comment period follows the release of the DEIS including MMS-held public hearings on the Cape and Islands, Coyne stressed the importance of Nantucket stating its position early in the comment process.

"It's time to go on record," said Coyne. "It's the right time to go on the record with as strong a view as you have on the siting of this project."

Coyne advised the selectmen and the NP&EDC to issue Nantucket's position once the DEIS is issued.

"It's just around the corner," he said. "I think it's time to take that opinion and put as much force behind it as you can."

Planning Director Andrew Vorce needs to have at least a sense of how the selectmen and the NP&EDC feel about the project in time for an alternative siting meeting being held by MMS on Feb. 28. The selectmen did not share their thoughts on Monday night because they only make such rulings during their weekly meetings on television.

"They are supposed to do that on Feb. 14 and hopefully they will develop some sort of position and in the meantime the NP&EDC will hopefully develop their position a little bit more," said Vorce, who echoed Coyne's imperative.

"I think it is important for me to get from the selectmen and the Planning Commission what their positions are," said Vorce. "I'm not hearing from them, are they supporting this, are they supporting this with reservations?"

Selectmen Chairman Whitey Willauer said the board does need time to discuss this as a board and offered few thoughts on his board's feelings. Planning Commission Chairman Barry Rector floated the idea of Cape Wind paying Nantucket's electric bills for the next ten years as one of the concessions to limit the impact of the project on Nantucket.

Cape Wind Communications Director Mark Rodgers said that this could be a possibility.

"It's not unusual that there is some project mitigation," said Rodgers. "That usually gets determined by the permitting agency fairly late in the permitting process. Cape Wind is interested in contracting with local entities that sell power on the Cape and the Islands. I think we're going to have a competitive product with a fixed cost for 15 to 20 years."

One such entity could be the energy aggregate for Nantucket proposed by Energy Study Committee member Robert Schwarzenbach who believes Nantucket could save up to 20 percent on its electric bills by buying its power directly from electric plants.

Coyne also explained to the selectmen and the Planning Commission the ramifications of Cape Wind siting its wind turbines south of Tuckernuck Island, which Vorce said would be one of the alternative sites discussed at the MMS meeting at the end of this month. This and other deep water sites, it was collectively agreed, would cost Cape Wind more to install but could remove some of the opposition to project, a majority of which cited the negative aesthetic impacts of wind turbines.

In a nonbinding referendum on Nantucket's 2006 election ballot, 66 percent of Nantucket voters said they were against Cape Wind's proposal. That could change if Cape Wind offered concessions

that appeal to Nantucketers.

"If people [commissioners and selectmen] feel that they support it with conditions or whatever, I want them to start thinking about this now," said Vorce. "I don't want them to use the process just to hold something up. The process should be there to address legitimate concerns and if those concerns are met, then the project should be supported."

Cape Wind Associates' proposed wind farm for 24 square miles of Nantucket Sound on Horseshoe Shoal includes 130, 3.6-megawatt wind turbines 417 feet tall that it promises will produce 420 megawatts of electricity, enough to provide three quarters of the

power needs for the Cape and the Islands. I