TOWERING TURBINES

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

My partner, Jay, and I purchased a home on the Vineyard nearly six years ago. I don’t think we’ll ever forget the words of the listing agent, Rob Kendall, when he first showed us our house. He stood on our deck in the yard and looking out over the valley below and the vast ridge beyond, he raised his arms and beamed: “Welcome to the Chilmark Alps.”

Affordable Housing Report Card

Affordable housing continues to be a pressing issue on the Island, and the past few weeks have seen developments on more than one front.

Bradley Square

It is a cold January morning and inside the Massachusetts State Lobster Hatchery on Lagoon Pond in Oak Bluffs, all is quiet. It has been 14 years since lobsters swam in bubbling tanks and thousands of summer visitors were treated to tours of this place overlooking the Lagoon.

Victoria Campbell is, as she said yesterday, not a real nurse. A week ago she had not seen a human skull in surgery, assisted in amputations or dressed jagged gouges the size of her fist at the base of a man’s spinal cord. “I’d have been queasy just at the thought,” she said in a voice betraying her own disbelief at the time she has just spent in a Haitian hospital.

Interested in a two-month position this winter that pays $16 an hour, where you can schedule your own hours, get some fresh air plus exercise, and meet fun new people?

Many Vineyarders at this time of year could use all of the above.

That’s the basic job description for a census 2010 field worker, and Uncle Sam would like to hire hundreds of them here on the Island.

David C. Faus, headmaster of Falmouth Academy, announced that 10 students from Martha’s Vineyard were named to the Headmaster’s List for the first trimester of the 2009-2010 academic year.

Twelfth grade: Clea Baumhofer, daughter of Mark and Kim Baumhofer of Vineyard Haven; Lily Cronig, daughter of Jo Weinberg of West Tisbury and Donald Cronig of Vineyard Haven; Lagan Trieschmann, son of Beth and Stephen Trieschmann of Vineyard Haven.

Phoebe Kelleher woke Christmas morning to find sunscreen in her stocking this year. Judging from her light hair, fair complexion and Irish heritage, she needs it — but certainly not against the gray winter skies on the Vineyard.

A long-awaited master plan for the Oak Bluffs waterfront was unveiled Tuesday at the Oak Bluffs selectmen’s meeting, with a vision that includes rebuilding the crumbling seawall along the North Bluff and bringing in massive amounts of sand to replenish town beaches along Sea View avenue that have been ravaged by erosion.

The price tag for the plan is close to $7 million; town leaders say they are working to secure state and federal grant money to cover most of the cost.

Federal authorities plan to open up almost 4,000 square nautical miles of ocean near the Vineyard for potential wind power generation.

A draft Request for Interest (RFI) map presented to a renewable energy task force meeting of state, local and federal representatives on Wednesday identifies a vast arc of ocean, extending from the Rhode Island border, southwest of the Island, across to the south of the Vineyard and Nantucket, then running north and east to the entrance to Nantucket Sound.

Nearly $2 million in federal clean water funding awarded this week to Oak Bluffs and Edgartown is expected to bring several long-awaited wastewater projects to fruition, including a sewer tie-in for the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School and for the YMCA now nearing completion.