By Peter B. Brace

Independent Writer

 

Citing a flawed DEIS riddled with missing information, environmental damage, navigational anxieties and visual blight, just over half of the 60 people speaking at Nantucket’s public hearing on Cape Wind’s proposed wind farm told the Minerals Management Service no to wind turbines in Nantucket Sound.

Of the 350 people — the high school auditorium holds 769 — that turned out late yesterday afternoon for the second of four Minerals Management Service (MMS) public hearings held to glean regional input on the wind farm, 82 signed up to speak, but only 60 walked up to the microphone. Of those, 24 made impassioned pleas to the MMS that it should issue its Final Environmental Impact statement in favor of 130 wind turbines on Horseshoe Shoal and the other 36 voiced their opposition against it or had serious doubts.

At the first of these hearings held in West Yarmouth on Monday night, 1,016 people attended and of the 186 that signed up to speak, only 60 got the chance to with 74 percent of them arguing against the wind farm.

Prior to the hearing, which began at 5 p.m. and ran to almost 9 p.m., supporters from both camps lined up outside Nantucket High School greeting people as they approached the entrance to the school. Both the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound and Clean Power Now fired off last-minute emails to their constituents urging them to arrive well before the 4 p.m. signup time for people who wanted speak at the public hearing.

Much like Nantucket’s Town Meeting, attendees who had spoke their piece and or heard their issues addressed, dribbled out of the auditorium, and after the 15-minute break at 7 p.m., a large portion of the original crowd had gone home. Aside from around a dozen Alliance staffers and members from Cape Cod, there were only a handful of other residents from the mainland who made the trip to the island to speak.

All of the 36 in opposition that spoke supported the concept of renewable energy from wind turbines, but not in Nantucket Sound. Their comments covered old ground, jabbing at the permitting agency for not doing a thorough enough job in its DEIS by releasing it too soon before several crucial studies where completed, pointing out the navigational risks to sailors, ferries, fishermen, planes and search and rescue crews, suggesting site alternatives, mentioning the potential for environmental disaster and harm to marine life, and noting the unknown yet much higher costs of wind-generated electricity that ratepayers may be paying once the project is built.

Among the pro-wind speakers was a principal of Blue H USA who announced their proposal to put 120 floating wind turbines in deep water 23 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard. And the rest 24 who liked the idea of wind turbines on Nantucket Sound, rather than confining their comments to the regional impacts of Cape Wind’s proposal, among their other supporting arguments, put a global spin on the need for clean, renewable energy and the importance of that happening in their own backyard.

The pro-wind people cited the cost of oil, now selling for nearly $110 a barrel, the visual beauty of the turbines, how they would boost tourism, the myriad positive comments in the DEIS, Mass Audubon’s cautious support of the project and the need to break free of energy supplied by the nation’s enemies.

And here is some of what five from each group had to say at last night’s hearing on Nantucket:

 

“I’d love to see a site off Tuckernuck Island because Tuckernuck’s not into where we sail, not into where we move; it’s pretty much out of the way and it’s pretty high wind velocity out there. It can get up to around 19 mph.”

—Whitey Willauer, Chairman of the Board of Selectmen

 

“We cannot go on this way for long. We cannot go one as usual. The time has come for change on a global scale.”

—Ian Golding, Nantucket resident

 

“Cape wind is not a miracle project as portrayed in the DEIS or portrayed now by people here, it is a massive industrial project with serious problems.”

—Audra Parker, the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound

 

“The facts seem to be true that this not a problem, this is a good thing and we need it. We need it before Nantucket disappears, we need it so Nantucket [remains] a place our children and grandchildren can share.”

—Don Freedman, Nantucket resident

 

 “My concern for this project is that all that life, that baitfish that comes up through Nantucket Sound, the sand lance and the squid, it comes through this area and it is amazing how much bait comes through here. During the two or three years construction time, this life is going to be disrupted.”

—Bobby DeCosta, Nantucket charter fishermen

 

“To put it somewhere else, that is the essence of not in my backyard. This project, the Cape Wind project, will not change the world, but in our front yard, it will make a difference.

—Nancy Wheatley, Nantucket resident

 

“Nantucket Sound should be a national park, not a wind farm.”

—Doug Foregger

 

“Having seen wind turbines in other places around the world, we do not believe these turbines will have a significant impact on ours and other peoples’ views of Nantucket Sound.”

—Chris Lohman, owner of the only two houses on Great Point

 

“This is not a question of whether we need alternate energy sources; we do, however Nantucket Sound is an inappropriate location for this project.”

—Robert Lang, Nantucket resident

 

“We are on the Titanic and there’s not enough life boats and this project is a great big life boat and I think it’s time we got on it.”

—Laura Wasserman, Clean Power Now