Army Corps of Engineers Releases Long-Awaited Environmental Report for Controversial Cape Wind Plan

The controversial Cape Wind project vaulted back into the news this week with the long-awaited release of a draft environmental impact statement from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

After three years of deliberation and months of anticipation, the environmental report found that the wind farm proposed for Nantucket Sound would have economic and air quality benefits but little or no long-term negative impacts.

His neck is stiff, still sore from where a piece of exploding metal chipped the vertebra in the back of his neck. A second shrapnel hit him in the jaw.

"I am definitely feeling grateful," said Michael V. Berninger, a 20-year-old Marine on medical leave from Iraq, now back home in Vineyard Haven.

Had that piece of metal gone deeper or ended up somewhere else, Mr. Berninger might not be sitting here.

"That is probably the closest you can come to being killed. It certainly is the closest for me," he said, taking a long puff from a cigarette.

Mississippi Shipyard Bid Comes in at $31.4 Million for New Vineyard
Ferry

By IAN FEIN

Steamship Authority engineers opened bids for the Islander
replacement ferry on Wednesday and found that the lowest qualifying bid
was $31.4 million - 25 per cent higher than their top estimate.

SSA management had projected that the new ferry would cost between
$22 million and $25 million. This week the actual price tag climbed to
at least $31.4 million, as bid by the VT Halter Marine shipyard in
Pascagoula, Miss.

On Wednesday morning, under a warm sun and blue sky, David and Karen
Berube were out on Cape Pogue Pond, at it again.

Red Cross Chapter Charts a Fresh Course

By C.K. WOLFSON

Brenda Lehman remembers when she was five, and her family lost
everything in an apartment fire, and again when she was 12, in another
other fire in Dorchester.

"The only people there to help us were the Red Cross and the
Salvation Army," she said. "After Sept. 11 I said,
that's it. I have time for everything else, now it's the
time to volunteer for Red Cross. I want to give back."

Three separate police investigations have led to several major drug
arrests, the Martha's Vineyard Drug Task Force announced this
week.

An Oak Bluffs man was arrested Sunday at the Stop & Shop in
Vineyard Haven, while two separate incidents on Tuesday and Wednesday
led to the arrest of three others. All have been charged with various
drug-related crimes.

West Tisbury Town Hall Wins Makeover

By IAN FEIN

When Sandy Fisher walks into the West Tisbury town hall, she says
the ladies' room smells exactly like it did when she went to
school there about 40 years ago.

"It's probably the original mold," she said this
week.

Sometime soon, however, the bathrooms will begin to smell different,
as the 134-year-old building is set for a dramatic $3.7 million
makeover.

The nation may be split down the middle after Tuesday's presidential election, but the Vineyard was anything but divided when it came to casting ballots for Democrats.

Voters on Martha's Vineyard came out in droves Tuesday, and by margins as wide as three to one, they threw their support behind Sen. John Kerry, the unsuccessful presidential contender, and sent incumbent Democrats back to the Massachusetts Legislature in the face of Republican challenges.

Interviews Set for SSA Post

Dukes County Commissioners Will Meet With Candidates for Boat Line
Governor Wednesday Afternoon

By IAN FEIN

Facing internal ethics issues and arguably their most important
decision of the year, Dukes County commissioners on Wednesday will
conduct public interviews with the seven candidates for Vineyard
Steamship Authority governor.

Incumbent governor Kathryn A. Roessel's three-year term
expires at the end of the December.

The early framers were the Thomas Jeffersons of the Vineyard - visionaries and idealists ahead of their time. They looked down the road, saw trouble and took action, with an eye toward a regional solution.

The result was the Martha's Vineyard Commission, a regulatory commission considered unique in American government, both then and now.