New Island Golf Course Takes Shape

Mother Nature is keeping the Vineyard Golf Club under construction until the next summer season.

Even though the fairways and contours of the course are beginning to glow in a shade of bright green, the caretakers of Vineyard Golf Club refuse to open the 71-acre facility until they know it can sustain foot and cart traffic.

“We agreed to do this the right way. It’s really a labor of love,” said Owen Larkin, managing partner of Vineyard Golf Club.

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Vineyard Struggles with Fallout from Tragedy

The streets of Edgartown early Tuesday morning are nearly empty. The day breaks sunny, a lovely September morning.

9:49 a.m. Small groups of people gather in store entrances to listen in disbelief to the normally soothing broadcast voices of Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings. People exchange any tidbits they know as they try to piece together the sketchy details of terrorist plane attacks on the World Trade Center.

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Island Community Joins Nation in Mourning; Citizens Reach Out with Generosity and Prayer

In a time of terror and grief in America, Vineyarders join citizens across the nation in an outpouring of support for the most timeless of American symbols: 50 stars and 13 stripes.

American flags wave proudly from vehicle antennas, from minivans to tow trucks. From Main street to your street, American flags cover the community in red, white and blue. But instead of standing tall in Independence Day pride, the flags hover halfway up the poles, paying homage to thousands of Americans lost in last Tuesday's terrorist attacks and to a country navigating through uncharted territory.

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Reporting Rape to Authorities Becomes Struggle for Survivors

Television police dramas depict officers arriving at the scene of the rape - often a dark public park - where they meet a shaken young woman who describes with perfect accuracy the bearded man who raped her. After searching the park, the officers find the rapist, arrest him and the woman presses charges without hesitation.

Hollywood's depiction of the typical sexual assault and the survivor's response strays far from reality. Women often hesitate before contacting the police, and the attackers often get away.

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40B Plan Draws Protests at Final MVC Hearing

Emotions ran high throughout the final night of public testimony regarding a Chapter 40B affordable housing development that, if approved, would place 20 homes on 4.9 acres of land near Tisbury's center.

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Wind Farm Test Tower Wins Approval

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers this week gave Cape Wind Associates a green light to erect a single 197-foot-tall monitoring station in the shallows of Nantucket Sound.

The permit grants the private energy company permission to build just a single structure for collecting wind and water data - information that will further aid in state and federal environmental review of a proposed offshore wind farm. But the would-be developer of what is potentially the first such farm in the United States interprets permission from the Army Corps as a monumental hurdle.

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Alliance Campaigns Against Wind Farm in Nantucket Sound

The leading critics of the 170-turbine offshore wind farm proposed for the shallow waters of Horseshoe Shoal made their way across Nantucket Sound to rally Vineyard opposition to the project.

"I've seen grocery stores take longer to get permitting in front of the Cape Cod Commission than it took for Cape Wind to get [a data tower permit] from the Army Corps of Engineers," said Isaac Rosen, executive director of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, to less than a dozen officials at the all-Island selectmen's meeting Wednesday night.

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Wind Farm Yields Evening of Lively Debate

A crowd of Vineyard residents registered their concerns with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers regarding a proposed private energy project that aims to plant 170 windmills in 28 square miles of shallow water in Nantucket Sound. For nearly two hours last Thursday night an audience of 60 entered comments into the formal record during a scoping session held in conjunction with a Martha's Vineyard Commission meeting in the basement of the Old Whaling Church in Edgartown.

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High Nitrates Found in Home Wells Near Vineyard Golf Club

High nitrate levels found in the private wells of a few Edgartown homes off West Tisbury Road sent health officials scrambling this week - trying to pin down the exact source of what could be a sizable plume running through Edgartown Meadows subdivision.

More than a week into extensive testing, a few fingers point to the homes' neighbor, the Vineyard Golf Club, an 18-hole private luxury golf course that opened in May of 2002.

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Avoid Drinking Water Pending More Tests, Officials Tell Edgartown Meadows Homes

A new round of private well tests in an Edgartown neighborhood this week intensified the mystery for Island officials working to pinpoint the source of groundwater contamination spreading through the West Tisbury Road subdivision.

"It's too much of a puzzle, too many unknowns at this point," said Matthew Poole, Edgartown health agent, noting that now 20 per cent of the homes tested have water unsafe for drinking.

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