Cape Wind Reconfigures Plan at Horseshoe Shoal to Meet State
Guidelines

By IAN FEIN

Ceding to requests from state officials, commercial fishermen and
the U.S. Coast Guard, developers of the Cape Wind project last week
reconfigured the layout of their hotly debated wind farm proposed for
Nantucket Sound.

The changes call for moving 10 turbines out of state waters and
relocating another 20 turbines from deeper to more shallow water on
Horseshoe Shoal, where they would pose less of an impact to navigation
and fishing. The new configuration places some turbines closer to Cotuit
and Craigville Beach on Cape Cod but moves others further away from
Point Gammon.

The nine-mile distance between the project and both Edgartown and
Oak Bluffs would remain the same, although some relocated turbines might
be more visible from the Vineyard.

The project as proposed still includes 130 turbines.

If approved, the Cape Wind project will be the nation's first
offshore wind farm. Developers estimate the project will produce an
average output of about 170 megawatts, or enough electricity to power
roughly three-quarters of the Cape and Islands.

Cape Wind developers last Thursday announced the new configuration
when they filed a notice of project change with the Massachusetts
Executive Office of Environmental Affairs. The public now has 20 days to
submit comments about the relocation, after which state secretary of
environmental affairs Ellen Roy Herzfelder will decide whether the
changes are substantial enough to warrant additional study.

Cape Wind spokesman Mark Rodgers said yesterday that he does not
expect that the changes will require more review.

"It's pretty obvious looking at the state's
criteria that this will not trigger additional review," Mr.
Rodgers said. "It's really a minor modification."

Secretary Herzfelder opted against requiring a supplemental study in
March when she certified the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers review of the
project as having adequately addressed issues within state jurisdiction.

As the project's lead permitting authority, the Army Corps
last fall released a draft environmental impact statement that was
highly favorable to Cape Wind.

The 3,800-page report sparked sharp debate on the Cape and Islands
this winter, with other federal environmental agencies involved in the
review - such as the U.S. Department of the Interior and the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency - calling it insufficient,
misleading and inadequate.

The Army Corps is now sifting through the nearly 5,000 comments it
received in response to its report, and will then decide what additional
studies - if any - are required to complete its final
review.

It is unclear whether the new configuration will affect the timeline
of the Army Corps review. The Army Corps is not expected to release its
final environmental impact statement until the end of the year, at the
earliest.

Since it was first unveiled in 2001, the ambitious Cape Wind project
has been at the center of an expensive and divisive battle fraught with
politics. In the last four years the wind farm debate has spread from
Peaked Hill to Beacon Hill to Capitol Hill.

The floor of the U.S. Senate featured talk of the Cape Wind proposal
last month, when senators debated whether to offer federal tax credits
for wind energy projects. The senate last Tuesday approved an energy
bill that would continue the subsidies.

Tax credits are a key component in the Cape Wind project's
finances. According to the Cape Cod Times, if the project was online
today it would receive roughly $27 million in tax credits by the end of
its first year in operation.

Cape Wind president James Gordon said this spring that the company
has already spent $20 million on the project, and estimated its overall
project cost as now well over $800 million.

Every day that the project is delayed during the permitting process,
Mr. Gordon said, increases its construction cost and puts off any
benefits that the public would enjoy.

The reconfiguration last week was in direct response to a request
made by Secretary Herzfelder in March that Cape Wind remove any turbines
located in state waters. The state does not allow wind turbines within
the boundary of its waters, extending three miles offshore.

The original Cape Wind proposal fell entirely within federal waters,
but the U.S. Minerals Management Service in February redrew the state
boundary to include a rocky formation off Yarmouth, extending state
waters further into Nantucket Sound.

Cape Wind's new configuration moves the turbines, at one point
only 4.7 miles from Yarmouth, to the west. The closest point to the
mainland is now 5.2 miles away. The new layout also slightly reduces the
project's overall footprint from its original 24 square miles.

Mr. Rodgers said other changes in the configuration - such as
relocating turbines from the southeastern corner of the proposed
footprint - were in response to concerns about possible impacts to
fishing and navigation in the area.

"While we were [moving the turbines out of state waters] we
took the opportunity to reevaluate the whole wind farm area and make
some other changes to try and accommodate some feedback that had been
received during the public comment period," Mr. Rodgers said.
"We think it makes sense. It's a more compact configuration
and it will work well."