Native Americans and FAA holding up Cape Wind

COURTESY OF CAPE WIND Mark Rodgers, Cape Wind Associates communication director, describes his employer's plans to build an offshore wind farm in Horseshoe Shoals as an eight-year process.

The project now hinges on two unresolved issues that are being hammered out by the Minerals Management Service of the U.S. Department of Interior and the Federal Aviation Administration.

In addition to two federal agencies trying to reach agreement over the wind farm, two Wampanoag tribes are asserting a tribal cultural properties claim that these waters and the view across them are sacred.

The Wampanoag or "The People of the First Light" argue that they cannot practice their centuries-old ceremonies without a clear view of the sunrise. The Native Americans are asking the federal Advisory Council on Historic Preservation to help them classify Nantucket Sound as traditional cultural property, a designation that could permanently becalm Cape Wind's project. Part of their bid to convert the Sound into sacred ground stems from the Wampanoag belief that the turbine generators' monopoles would be pounded 80 to 100 feet into the bottom in a Native American burial ground dating back to when the Wampanoag lived on what was then land.

"It is a place where our ancestors are buried," said George "Chuckie" Green, a historical officer for the tribe, in the New York Times on Oct. 5, 2009. "It is a place that is principal to our practices. An unobstructed view of the eastern sun is paramount to our religion."

The Minerals Management Service is non-specific on what in this debate is holding up its final recommendation to Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar.

"We're finishing up the Section 106 process right now, but I don't have a firm date when it will be complete, but I know that we're in the final stages," said MMS Spokesman Nicholas Pardi.

Cape Wind, however, is a bit more to the point.

"One thing that has slowed down the process is this kind of 11th hour claim by the Wampanoag that Nantucket Sound should be designated as cultural property," said Rodgers. "We're convinced they will not be successful in getting that designation.

"[And] I think it's important for local and regional stakeholders, and even some who do not support Cape Wind, [to know] that it would have negative impacts across the board."

Such a designation would require anyone planning any kind of marine structure for residential or commercial use to go through the time-consuming, expensive Section 106 process, Rodgers cautioned.

Closure on this issue means the signing of a memorandum of agreement between Cape Wind, the MMS, Advisory Council on Historic Preservation and the Massachusetts Historical Commission. If no agreement is reached, then the MMS initiates a termination process and makes its own decision.

If there is any good news for Cape Wind, Rodgers alludes to it in his report on finding middle ground on the FAA's presumed hazard notice from last winter. An aeronautical study on suspected radar interference from the 440-foot turbines resulted in the FAA issuing the notice because the study found that the wind turbines could have an adverse impact on air traffic control abilities of radar facilities at Otis Air Force Base, Nantucket Memorial Airport and North Truro Cape.

Mitigation of this radar interference on behalf of Cape Wind would be costly. Without a resolution, the FAA would require Cape Wind to fund new digital radar equipment for the most heavily affected air traffic control sites of the three, Otis Air Force Base, which can see through the "signal clutter" that the wind turbines produce.

In its notice, the FAA outlined two possible resolution scenarios. The first would augment the existing analog radar system at Otis with a digital system and would cost $1.5 million for installation and an additional $200,000 for power upgrades. Should an upgrade not solve the problem, the replacement system would cost $12 to $15 million.

But Rodgers did not seem to indicate that either would be necessary, saying that they are close to resolving this issue.

"It's matter of weeks," said Rodgers. "The FAA and Cape Wind both agree that there are solutions that address the concerns they have raised."

The MMS is expected to issue a record of decision on Cape Wind by the end of the year, said Rodgers. I