Top federal environmental agencies found fundamental flaws in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers review of the controversial Cape Wind project, the Gazette has learned.

Responding to an early version of the Army Corps draft environmental impact statement, the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Mineral Management Service all questioned the objectivity of the Army Corps analysis.

"In general, the document often reads as if promoting a predetermined decision, which is contrary to the nature and goals of the NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act] process," wrote Maria Burks, superintendent of the National Park Service's Cape Cod National Seashore.

"We believe most readers of the EIS [environmental impact statement] will want to read the independent analysis by the Corps," wrote Vernon Lang, assistant supervisor of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's New England Field Office. "As currently written, we find that independent analysis lacking."

The comments were made in a series of letters obtained by the Gazette. The letters represent an exchange of internal correspondence between the Army Corps and the organizations, which are listed by the Corps as three of the 16 cooperating agencies included in the review process.

The letters span a four-month period last spring, from March to June 2004, as the draft statement took shape. The correspondence has not been released by the Corps, and was not included in its massive 3,800-page draft statement.

The three federal agencies, which are arms of the U.S. Department of the Interior, take no position on the proposal by the developer Cape Wind Associates to build a transfer substation and 130 wind turbines over 24 square miles in Nantucket Sound. The agencies also take no position on whether the wind farm project should be permitted.

The sometimes sharply worded letters do, however, raise serious questions about the Corps' ability to conduct an objective analysis of the project. All three agencies criticize specific aspects of the draft statement - including avian impact studies and analysis of alternatives - as well as the overall tone of the report, which was widely favorable to Cape Wind.

"NEPA analysis should remain objective and avoid taking an advocacy position," wrote Dr. Rodney E. Cluck of the Mineral Management Service's Environmental Assessment Branch. "This document often presents arguments in support of the project that should be removed. A more unbiased approach is needed to assess the impacts - both the pros and cons of development."

In its completed draft statement released Nov. 9, the Corps did change certain words and sentences to remedy some of the criticisms. The larger issues, however, were not addressed.

Against a backdrop of passionate public hearings on the Cape and Islands last week, the letters highlight questions about the Corps' willingness to incorporate outside comment into the environmental review, even from its own cooperating agencies.

"It appears that many of the issues addressed in our prior correspondence and cooperating agency meetings are still unresolved and likely to foster differences among various parties as the EIS process moves forward," wrote Mr. Lang of the Fish and Wildlife Service.

An earlier April 2002 letter from the Environmental Protection Agency, obtained by the Gazette, recommended that the Corps address the absence of any public policy for permitting offshore wind farms.

"The Corps will need to thoroughly explore these public policy issues . . ." wrote Robert W. Varney, regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency. The letter was written during the public scoping period for the impact statement, an early part of the process.

"The DEIS/DEIR must fully consider the public trust implications of siting a facility in federal waters," Mr. Varney said.

The draft statement makes little or no mention of the subject.

Karen Adams, project manager for the Corps, said the impact statement addressed the cooperating agencies' comments where appropriate, but she acknowledged that there was disagreement over some of the details.

"The agencies aren't going to tell you that they are in total agreement with regards to the whole document, and I certainly can't say they're all buying into every word that's in there," Mrs. Adams said this week. "It's not like everything's unanimous, but we're not necessarily looking for all the agencies to be in agreement. There are some things they'd like to see that we can't do."

In a June 2004 letter Mr. Lang of the Fish and Wildlife Service pointed to fault lines in the bird and avian section of the draft statement. He criticized the Corps for using unreliable studies from Cape Wind and its consultants, and asked that the Corps delete its statement that the project will not reduce the overall bird population, calling it misleading and premature at best.

All three agencies criticized the Corps' analysis of project alternatives, which they felt skewed the study to support the Cape Wind proposal.

Mr. Lang said the Corps failed to adequately consider other energy generation technologies as reasonable alternatives. Mrs. Burks of the National Park Service noted that the section about wind was written differently than the sections about other energy options.

"It makes the DEIS sound like a promotional brochure for wind energy development rather than a balanced analysis of benefits and impacts," she wrote, adding that a line in the section's summary of findings was taken directly from an industry-sponsored organization, the Electric Power Research Institute.

Mrs. Burks also criticized the energy threshold the Corps used to determine the feasibility of reasonable alternatives. She noted that the Cape Wind project, which developers say will have an average output of 170 megawatts, would itself not fall into the Corps' threshold of 200 to 1,500 megawatts.

"This unjustified threshold, at least per documents reviewed, provides the perception that the Corps is automatically eliminating further discussion or balanced analysis of potential alternatives and sites other than what the project proponent is offering," Mrs. Burks wrote.

The agencies all noted that the Corps did not use the same criteria in examining each alternative, and that the section regarding a "no action" alternative was particularly lacking. An earlier version of the section zeroed in on the negatives and ignored other efforts to improve air quality in the region.

"The broad statement declaring ‘. . . there will be no significant and long-term improvements to regional air quality conditions as described in the Proposed Alternative under the No Action Alternative' is presumptive at best and knowingly misleading at worst," said Mrs. Burks of the National Park Service. "By making misleading statements and inappropriately characterizing the level of air pollution averted, the Corps is potentially damaging the success of other wind energy projects in the U.S.," Mrs. Burks added.

"In our view, this single page of discussion on the no action alternative seems to have been written to serve as a justification for the proposed project rather than as a baseline from which to measure the effects of other reasonable alternatives," wrote Mr. Lang. "We recommend that the Corps require this analysis to be rewritten and to be free from self-serving conclusory statements."