YACK on: Cape Woodchuck
Grant Sanders
Well, I'm surprised no one has written letters to the paper about this stuff. I'm dumbfounded how a story of this magnitude has flown under the proverbial PAVE PAWS radar for many, many months. If people knew what was happening, I'm pretty sure they would be up in arms about this news. The pitchforks would be sharpened. The torches would be refilled with that smelly citronella fuel stuff. Congressmen would be called. Selectmen would be harassed. Lines in the sand would be drawn, and some neighbors would never speak to each other

again.

I speak, of course, about the plans that a (greedy) off-island developer has to place a massive, genetically engineered woodchuck in the middle of Nantucket Sound. Cape Woodchuck, they call it.

I know. It's crazy. But it's totally, absolutely, 100 percent true. Really. I heard it straight from the opposition group's radio ads.

This Cape Woodchuck will be over 690 feet tall (or more!). Taller than the Statue of Liberty, they say. Taller than former Celtics Hall-of-Fame center, Robert Parish. Taller than half of the Empire State Building (the tallest building in the world until 1972), even after the woodchuck is buried, knee deep, in the soft Horseshoe Shoal sand.

(I understand that the Woodchuck will be driven nearly 90 feet into the sand, which will take a long time and will be very, very loud, and, in all likelihood, cheese off the seals and whales and other marine mammals who will find the constant pounding upon the woodchuck's skull during the "installation process" to be extremely annoying. The whales and seals will find it annoying. The woodchuck will find the process to be somewhat enjoyable as woodchucks have thick skulls and, at that size, the genetically enhanced woodchuck, will interpret the pounding to be soothing petting. Go figure.)

Birds, including the endangered, politically-correctly renamed "long tailed" ducks will fly into the woodchuck's mouth, to their doom. Thousands will die each day. Or so I'm told. By reliable sources!

Once installed, the woodchuck will be hooked up to the power grid and, according to several highly informed, yet completely unnamed and unchecked sources, will produce power at a rate that is 300 percent higher than the cost associated with oil, coal, nuclear solar and thermo electric, COMBINED. And, of course, we will all be FORCED to pay these higher rates, as there is no one to protect us from such gouging.

And who does the gouging? The Cape Woodchuck developer of course! This off-island, money-grubbing, industrialist has no concern for the environment or the people of Nantucket. All he cares about is money. Money, money, money. You just can't trust anyone from off island, you know. You can't.

And worst of all, the industrialist in question is using a federal loophole to engineer a shady LAND GRAB that means that pleasure boaters and fishermen will never be able to use the waters in and around the giant woodchuck again. Can you just picture the sailboats and ferries swatted out of the water by a massive woodchuck, angered by their white sail cloth? As Sammy Davis used to say, "Ouch, babe!" The waters in the sound will run blood-red with the remains of crews and boats knocked silly by the giant woodchuck who will pose a dangerous hazard for all boaters until the end of time. And if there are survivors, the U.S. Coast Guard will have a heck of a time getting a helicopter in there to rescue people because the whirling blades will get caught in the woodchuck's fur and then crash land in the foaming, grey surf of the sound. Sending many brave men and women to a watery grave. God rest their souls.

And what about the fishermen? Fishermen rely on the entire Horseshoe Shoal area for their livelihood, despite it being a just few feet deep in several spots and therefore dangerous for larger boats. And we all know fishermen have 10 to 12 children each who will go hungry because of the massive woodchuck. It's a shame. A crying shame.

And then there are the billions of small planes that cross the Sound every day. Despite being highly trained and certified to fly at night above obstructions and genetically altered animals, , using instruments, the pilots of these planes are in grave (yes, GRAVE!) danger from the presence of massive woodchucks who are genetically predisposed to reach up and bat them from the sky, thinking that the planes are dragonflies or June bugs (a delicacy among woodchucks). And there's a rumor (not yet confirmed) that massive woodchucks interfere with FAA radar, and for that very reason, oversized genetically engineered animals have been banned in the U.K. And Luxembourg.

It's totally, absolutely, 100 percent true!

And what about the AESTHETICS? I mean, I don't want to have to stroll along the shore in Surfside or 'Sconset or Eel Point and have to look "out there" to see a behemoth woodchuck flailing about, and screaming those high pitched screams as only woodchucks do! I mean come on! It's a threat to our way of life as islanders. It's un-American. And even though a woodchuck can reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, I think that woodchucks of that size are just wrong in the sound. It's like putting a massive woodchuck in the Grand Canyon or something! And we can't have that, can we?

And of course, if the woodchuck does not work, or pulls up lame, as all woodchucks eventually do, the developer will abandon him and stop feeding him woodchuck chow and the people of Nantucket will be left to clean up the mess! It's awful. And just a little bit icky.

I mean, I'm really concerned. And while all of the claims I've made above about a woodchuck in Nantucket Sound are just as totally, absolutely, 100 percent truthful as 99 percent of the claims made by the opponents of the proposed Cape Wind project, I still feel we should be totally, absolutely, 100 percent against the idea. Don't you?

YACK On. I

Grant Sanders is the host of YACK, the Nantucket Online Community at www.yackon.com. His views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of The Nantucket Independent. Or his wife.