A LESSER EVIL

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

I had to miss the Cape Wind hearing. I support Cape Wind. For me it is an indication that we are learning to dream differently, and think differently, and act differently. I have no quarrel, however, with those who oppose it. It is what it is to each of us.

But here’s my concern. I haven’t heard anyone embrace the pollution that comes from the oil-fired Cape Cod power plant, or the severe environmental degradation that comes from its supply chain. I haven’t heard anyone stand up for the devastating consequences of mining and burning coal, which provides 50 per cent of U.S. electricity. I haven’t heard anyone support sending more Americans to fight for the remains of a dwindling resource.

So my only hope is that those who see Cape Wind as an evil will come to see it as a lesser evil than other alternatives.

Relative to our national needs, Cape Wind is a drop in the bucket. If our children are to have security and prosperity, we will need many Cape Winds. Fortunately, wind is the fastest growing energy source in the world. It probably won’t be long before wind farms are as commonplace as wires by the roadside or masts in the harbor.

Deep-water turbines are a decade away, at best. Cape Wind is now, a good start. Will both be beneficial? Absolutely. Will they be specifically beneficial to the Vineyard? I hope so.

But I look forward to the time when we can stop arguing about Cape Wind, let it take its course, and devote ourselves to uniting to create local community-owned wind energy, which will be tremendously good for the environment, for our individual pocketbooks, and for our local economy.

John Abrams

West Tisbury

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NOT NIMBY

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

I think I speak for our community when I say that the Nimby [Not In My Back Yard] argument is old and played out and Cape Wind’s attempt to characterize the project’s opponents as wealthy, yachting Nimbys is not only untrue but just plain false.

Last week, at the public hearings on the Cape Wind federal report, Cape Wind opponents showed their faces: commercial fishermen, Wampanoag tribal leaders, ferry boat captains, airport officials, business leaders, politicians, artists, and tradesmen. Opposition to Cape Wind is diverse and widespread. Again, Nimby is not only an innaccurate label, but it’s downright offensive to hard-working Cape Codders whose livelihoods would be threatened by the desecration of Horseshoe Shoal. I trust that Clean Power Now — and the federal government — got the message.

Mark Foster

Aquinnah

A STEP FORWARD

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

It appears that a majority of the people in the United States now believe in global warming and global air and water pollution. Even the Southern Baptists have gone along with this idea believing that God could use a hand to save our planet.

Of course there are a number of doubters among our elected officials, including Representative Delahunt and Senator Kennedy. Instead of opposing an opportunity for advancing the cause of alternative energy, they should be leading the charge to develop a strong national energy policy.

It is also evident that many of us believe the planet is really running out of natural resources and primarily oil. There is also much discussion that alternate sources of clean energy must be utilized now in order to avoid an impending disaster. This of course includes solar, water and air which are being used, but giant steps must be taken to effect major changes. Those of us who live on the Cape and Islands have the opportunity to take a long step forward, for the next generation and beyond, by approving the Cape Wind.

Harvey Hinds

Edgartown

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INCOMPLETE STATEMENT

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

I’ve just read your coverage of the Vineyard comment night on the Department of Interior’s Minerals Management Service’s draft environmental impact statement of the Cape Wind project, and am deeply disappointed by the tone of the article.

Not only was the write-up far from objective but it also conveyed a cynical view of the crowd. Everyone there understands the urgency we face in our battle to reverse global warming. I drove my hybrid car (which the writer failed to notice) up from New York city to speak that evening, so I would like to correct what was written about my allotted three minutes.

I chose to address the threat of the Cape Wind turbines to travelers to the Islands. Nantucket Sound is one of the highest seasonal traffic areas in the entire country. I said that there are around 3 million passengers transported by the ferry lines each year through the Sound and 400,000 (your writer quoted 40,000) flights annually in the air above Nantucket Sound. My point was not to address the obvious carbon footprint (which no one denies) made by all these travelers but rather the safety issues that are likely to affect them. I challenge anyone to support a green project that puts human life in jeopardy.

The critical point I put forth, which your reporter ignored, is that the 2008 draft impact statement on Cape Wind released by the minerals service does not include the yet-unfinished terms and conditions from the Coast Guard, nor does it include the in-process study by the Federal Aviation Administration. Since these are the two agencies that monitor our air and water safety, their input is vital and cannot be ignored in a report of this kind.

In general, the content and conclusions of the 2008 draft statement are remarkably similar to that of the 2004 Cape Wind draft statement. The Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the Interior itself, criticized the earlier impact statement. You may recall that the environmental agency gave the 2004 Cape Wind draft statement its lowest rating possible, a 3, which the agency labels “inadequate.”

The good news is that there is now another local proposal, which makes the Cape Wind project seem antediluvian. Blue H USA LLC has proposed a 120-turbine wind farm in 40 square miles of deep water 23 miles southwest of Squibnocket Point in Chilmark. Rather than drilling into the seabed, this deep-water technology uses chains and anchors to secure a submerged deepwater platform on which the turbine is mounted. It would be out of the way of shipping lanes, recreational boating, commercial fishing and invisible from the shore. While some are saying that both projects should be built I do not agree. The Blue H project doesn’t merely mitigate the impact of the Cape Wind project; it outstrips it in every way.

Barbara Frelinghuysen Israel

Edgartown

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WORTHWHILE PROJECT

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

My name is Richard Toole. I put forward the following comments for the Minerals Management Service hearing on the Vineyard on the draft environmental impact statement concerning Cape Wind:

I am an elected member of the Martha’s Vineyard Commission and a former board member of the Vineyard Energy Project.

I appreciate this opportunity to express my support for the Cape Wind energy project and the adequacy of the draft environmental report. I have been a resident of the Vineyard for 35 years and have witnessed many changes which have all contributed to a greater need for electricity and energy from other sources.

Increased energy demands come from many more buildings with ever larger footprints, filled with new electronic gizmos. Most of these buildings require multiple vehicles and the necessary fuels to service them. Many of us have made the choice, most unconsciously, to live such an energy intensive lifestyle.

Unfortunately, due to a decreasing supply of and an increasing demand for fossil fuels and the negative environmental impact of burning these fuels we can no longer afford our energy intensive lifestyles. In my mind the Cape Wind project, when it was first proposed more than six years ago, was a much-needed wake-up call. An opportunity to look at how we live and how we impact the larger community and maybe even the rest of the world. Could we live differently, reduce our energy footprint and perhaps diminish the need for new electricity generation?

During those six years for most of us that has not happened. We are in a crisis now. Electricity supplies are inadequate, rates are rising and carbon emissions are finally being recognized as a major contributor to global warming.

We need to make some choices. Some are easy and others are not. We need to act. Cape Wind should be a part of the solution, since we have decided we need more electricity, not less and we should no longer foul our air in the process. Even when Cape Wind is approved, we are going to have to make many other changes if we want to leave a livable planet for our grandchildren. We don’t have the luxury of waiting for the perfect solution to arrive.

Cape Wind has the potential to provide us with a clean, reliable and abundant source of electricity at rates we can count on over time in a world of escalating energy prices. Cape Wind will reduce our need for burning fossil fuels, reducing carbon emissions and reducing our ever-increasing need to import energy from many countries around the world. Renewable energy, besides being clean, can also provide local jobs, keeping more of our money in our communities leading to a strengthening of the dollar. Becoming more energy self-sufficient will make our region and our country stronger and safer, reducing security costs.

As a Martha’s Vineyard commissioner, I have participated in the evaluation of many projects. With each one the decision comes down to benefits verses detriments. If I could vote on Cape Wind, I feel I have enough information to determine that the benefits do outweigh the detriments and the Cape Wind energy project should be approved.

Richard Toole

Oak Bluffs

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TIME IS OF ESSENCE

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

I gave the following testimony at the U.S. Minerals Management Service hearing March 13 in Boston on the Cape Wind proposal. I organized Vineyarders for Clean Power, which has lobbied for construction of the wind farm in Nantucket Sound.

In my allotted three minutes, I testified:

On behalf of scores of citizens who have worked seven years for the Cape Wind project, thank you for your initial endorsement. On behalf of my two granddaughters, thank you. The Cape Wind project will make their future cleaner and healthier.

Beware the wealthy waterfront home owners and their influential politicians. They will try to discredit your environmental studies.

They have already succeeded in delaying the wind farm in Nantucket Sound five years.

Cape Wind Associates had planned to activate the project in 2006. Now it is planning a 2011 operational date.

Time is of the essence. The health of the planet hangs in the balance.

The chairman of the U.N. Commission that received the Nobel Peace Prize for alerting us on the immediate dangers of global warming recently said, “What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future.”

Bill Meyer

West Tisbury

and Charlestown

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GRIM LEGACY

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

If you did not attend the Great Wind Bowl last Wednesday, March 12th — you won. You did not miss much and saved four hours of your life.

It seems these windmills are the biggest and ugliest structures ever made by man: so massive that they will have their own gravitational field, and will suck in birds, boats, planes and tourists like some evil black hole. Nothing will be spared.

The real tragedy is that there was no one there under the age of 21 — the unfortunate generation that will inherit the financial debt and environmental mess we are leaving them.

Kenneth N. Rusczyk

Oak Bluffs

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LOCAL OPPOSITION

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

It’s interesting to note that Cape Wind supporters rarely address the

project itself. At last week’s public hearings, Cape Wind backers spent

most of their precious testimony time attacking Save Our Sound opponents and discussing rising sea levels, foreign oil, the war in Iraq, coal, and Denmark.

Weathering a seven-year media storm fueled by green guilt and developer deflection, local opposition to the Cape Wind project is stronger than ever. If the Minerals Management Service fails to find a more appropriate location for the Cape Wind project, then there is something shockingly wrong with the democratic process.

Lisa Zierenberg

Mashpee