Originally published June 30 2005
Long Island residents to measure the costs and benefits of wind farm plans
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
While weighing plans to build a 40-turbine, 140-megawatt wind farm off Jones Beach, Long Islanders are looking at the political problems that continue to plague the Cape Cod initiative.
While weighing plans to build a 40-turbine, 140-megawatt wind farm off Jones Beach, Long Islanders might consider the experience of their neighbors to the north on Cape Cod.
On the Cape, the battle over wind power has been a topsy-turvy trip down a rabbit hole into a world where odd alliances are made and things aren't always what they seem.
The businessman behind the Cape Cod plan, Jim Gordon, talks about saving the world and slowing the ocean's rise, but he wouldn't be doing this if there weren't a lot of money to be made.
The proposal of Gordon's company, Cape Wind Associates, to build a 130-turbine, 140- megawatt wind-generating facility on Horseshoe Shoals, a 23- square-mile area in Nantucket Sound, is at a critical juncture.
The nonprofit organization leading the fight against the wind farm, the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, has the support of many residents who consider themselves environmentalists.
On Long Island, it comes down to whose view will be affected and how influential they will be.
The key findings of the Army Corps' draft Massachusetts environmental impact statement, issued in November, were that the project would have little negative environmental impact - disruption of seabed areas during construction only and the loss of one bird a day, on average - and enormous public benefit by generating power without causing pollution.
Before and after the release of the impact statement, foes have focused primarily on what they believe are flaws in the review process itself, as well as the need for more federal regulation of the private development of federal waters.
They even managed to have the boundary between state and federal waters shifted so that several proposed towers would have to be eliminated or relocated.
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