Developers who want to build a private golf club along the Edgartown Great Pond turned up the volume this week on a campaign to win public support for their project, pitching the plan through eye-catching paid advertisements in both Island newspapers as the Martha’s Vineyard Commission continued deliberations on the project.

Declaring “We’ve Gone Organic,” the bold advertisements purport to detail a new shift toward organic turf management techniques for the golf course development.

The Meeting House Golf Club is planned for some 200 acres of land on the Great Pond owned by the MacKenty and Bigelow families. The developers for the project are Rosario and Barry Lattuca, a father and son team from Natick. Assisting with the project is Richard Friedman, a Boston real estate developer and seasonal homeowner on the Great Pond.

The Meeting House Golf project is under review by the Martha’s Vineyard Commission as a development of regional impact (DRI).

Advertisements published this week use quotations from the owner of an organic golf course in New Hampshire that appear to paint an endorsement of the Meeting House Golf Club.

In fact, Richard Luff, the owner of the Sagamore-Hampton Golf Club, said this week that he has not endorsed the Meeting House Golf project — and he expressed open anger that his words had been used in a newspaper advertisement without his permission.

“I am in no way endorsing this project,” said Mr. Luff in a telephone conversation with the Gazette this week. “I am absolutely disgusted with the Lattucas and I now regret even one ounce of participation I put into this project.”

Mr. Luff was referring to a letter he wrote after the Lattucas reportedly approached him recently and asked him to review their golf course management plan. Mr. Luff’s letter accompanied a final statement that was submitted to the MVC by the Meeting House Golf developers two weeks ago, at the close of the public comment period on the plan.

In the letter, Mr. Luff praised the Meeting House project for its plan to eliminate the use of herbicides and reduce the number of pesticides. He also criticized the project for its plan to use chemical fertilizers, and underscored a confusion in terms when it comes to organic practices.

“Organic does not mean natural, nor does it necessarily mean good. . . . [D]ifferent interpretations cast a veil of confusion upon the turfgrass industry,” Mr. Luff wrote.

About the Meeting House plan to use chemical fertilizers, he wrote: “The main concern for the remaining list of fertilizers is that they are chemical fertilizers which can lead to the deterioration of soil friability, destruction of beneficial soil life, and increase the vulnerability of turfgrass to disease.”

Although they have pledged a shift into organic turf management practices, there is continued confusion about what the Meeting House Golf developers really plan to do, since their original list of herbicides and pesticides which was submitted to the commission has not been altered.

Mr. Luff said this week that he agreed to comment on the project in a qualified way, and he said he now believes he was not given complete information. “I have come to learn that the list [of herbicides, pesticides and fungicides] that I was given is not the same list that is before the commission,” Mr. Luff said.

The advertisement published by the golf course developers this week also paints a favorable picture of the MVC staff assessment of the golf course project. “The MVC staff and our own experts have also concluded Meeting House Golf will have no pesticides impacts on ground water quality or the pond,” the advertisement declares.

The statement drew sharp comment from MVC executive director Charles Clifford, who said it would be wrong to conclude that the commission staff has in any way endorsed the golf course project.

“Not a bit — not even close,” he said. “Our staff does not endorse projects — and in fact the full staff report has not even been heard yet.”

A public hearing closed last month on the Meeting House Golf project. Deliberations were set to begin two weeks ago at the MVC land use planning subcommittee, but the deliberations were interrupted when a few members of the commission said they were concerned that the MVC never heard a full staff presentation on the project. The staff presentation was expected to be heard at a meeting of the commission last night.

At a land use planning committee meeting this week there was only brief discussion of the golf course project, although one member of the commission questioned whether the public hearing should be reopened in light of the late statement announcing a shift toward organic turf management practices. Committee members agreed that the full commission would hear staff reports and hold a discussion last night.

In a separate Meeting House Golf Club development this week, the superintendent of the Edgartown Water Company confirmed that he has asked Edgartown town counsel for an opinion about whether a town engineer who is also a paid consultant for the Meeting House project violated the conflict of interest laws.

Early this year Jesse Schwalbaum, a senior hydrogeologist and engineer with Earth Tech, examined a proposed golf course development at the site of the old Vineyard Acres II subdivision on behalf of the town water company. The Vineyard Acres II golf course project is in the zone of contribution for two town wells, and water superintendent Fred Domont said he asked Mr. Schwalbaum to examine the impacts of the proposed golf development on the town wells.

Mr. Schwalbaum wrote a letter about his findings — some of them critical. At Mr. Schwalbaum’s suggestion, the letter was forwarded to the Martha’s Vineyard Commission in February as part of the testimony surrounding the Vineyard Acres II golf course development. The Vineyard Acres II golf course project is also under review by the commission as a DRI, and is in fierce competition with the Meeting House Golf project.

Mr. Schwalbaum is also a paid hydrologist and leading expert for the Meeting House Golf project, and during recent public hearings he testified before the commission as a proponent for Meeting House Golf.

Mr. Domont said Mr. Schwalbaum has worked as an engineer for the town since 1992. “Just like the town is represented by town counsel, in our engineering matters Earth Tech represents us as engineers,” he said.

Mr. Domont said this week that Mr. Schwalbaum’s role as a paid engineer for the town and a paid expert for the Meeting House Golf group was called into question recently when it became clear that he had performed a critical analysis of the competing golf project. Mr. Domont said the Meeting House Golf project was not examined by the water company because it does not fall in the zone of contribution for town wells.

Mr. Domont had no further comment on the question of conflict surrounding Mr. Schwalbaum, except to say that he had received permission from the Edgartown selectmen to ask town counsel Ronald H. Rappaport to examine the matter.