Emily Bramhall had already replaced the incandescent light bulbs at home and in her store with low-watt fluoresecents, helped her daughter buy a hybrid car and taken other steps to reduce her carbon footprint. Now she wanted to go further, and start making her own electricity.
But, as Kermit the Frog once sang, it’s not that easy being green, and Ms. Bramhall’s plan to install a wind turbine on her Chilmark property met some resistance before the town zoning board of appeals this week.
More than 15 years ago, Brian Braginton-Smith of West Yarmouth came forward with an idea to meld wind power and aquaculture in what he envisioned as an “ocean ranch.”
Mr. Braginton-Smith’s proposal was the seed for what became the controversial proposal by Cape Wind Associates to place 130 wind turbines on Horseshoe Shoal south of Cape Cod.
The visionary now has separated himself from Cape Wind, saying he is concerned about the impact such a project would have on what he sees as an environmentally fragile fishing ground.
More than 3,200 written submissions have been received in response to the draft environmental impact statement on the Cape Wind project, and the federal Minerals Management Service has been forced to extend the deadline for comment by a month so yet more can be made.
The original 60-day period for comment was to have ended on March 20, but now will run until April 21.
Cape Wind has proposed building 130 wind turbines on Horseshoe Shoal in Nantucket Sound. The company has said that the wind farm could generate up to 420 megawatts of power.
Despite ongoing protests from a handful of small farmers, the Martha’s Vineyard Commission last Thursday continued on its path to develop regulations for wind turbines at sea and on land, voting to designate a sweeping land-based district of critical planning concern (DCPC) for airspace over the Island.
The vote was 12-0; it follows a vote by the commission six weeks ago to create a wind DCPC over the waters around the Island.
After nearly two years of rejections and revisions, Aquinnah voters agreed at a special town meeting on Tuesday night to adopt a bylaw to regulate private and public wind turbines. Crafted as an amendment to the townwide district of critical planning concern, the bylaw is the first of its kind to be adopted on the Vineyard.
But approval did not come without a wide-ranging debate that was at times passionate.
“If you believe in global warming, I think you should pass this,” declared selectman Jim Newman.
A major wind turbine development near the Vineyard is at best a stopgap measure, and the real energy future lies in federal waters, state energy and environmental officials told Islanders this week.
“The state’s interest, long-term is not in state water,” Deerin Babb-Brott, one of the senior bureaucrats driving the state oceans plan, told local community leaders at a public meeting at the regional high school Wednesday night. The interest is in federal water, at the extreme limit of visibility, or completely over the horizon, he said.
On Tuesday, Sept. 29 at 7 p.m. Peter Cabana will give a lecture, Wind Economics 101, at the Vineyard Haven library. The lecture will begin with the basics of wind generated electricity and then follow up with what has happened in Europe, the opportunities available to the United States and how Massachusetts is positioned to lead the nation. Mr.
Private and commercial wind turbines should not have a significant impact on bird populations in the town of Aquinnah as long as suitable regulations are in place, said Matt Pelikan, Islands program director for The Nature Conservancy, in a public forum held Wednesday night.
The forum was part of a series sponsored by the Aquinnah planning board on a new draft bylaw to regulate wind turbine use in town.
