Originally published January 6 2006
Wind Power project on Nantucket Sound creates split in the environmentalist community
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Dan Morast, president of the Cape-based International Wildlife Coalition, talks about the issues as seen by the two groups debating a wind power project scheduled to go up in Cape Cod, but the strange part is the division now pits environmentalists against each other, as local organizations are fending off national groups like Greenpeace, which supports the developing wind project in Nantucket Sound.
When it comes to Cape Wind Associates' plan to create a 130-turbine wind farm on Nantucket Sound, environmentalists not only disagree, some can't even agree about whether there's disagreement.
"There's definitely a split," says Peter Schlesinger, a member of Clean Power Now, a Cape pro-wind farm group.
"I normally contribute to several environmental organizations on Cape Cod, but I've stopped.
APCC [The Association to Preserve Cape Cod], for example, appears to be in the camp that's against the wind farm.
So in the a last couple of years I've stopped contributing to them."
Dan Morast, president of the Cape-based International Wildlife Coalition and a supporter of the anti-wind farm group The Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, sees the split somewhat differently.
"The [environmental] activists on the Cape are pretty well aligned," Morast says.
"It is the off-Cape environmental groups and conservation groups who jumped on the [Cape Wind] bandwagon.
And they've done a very poor job of reaching out to us, not the least of which is Greenpeace."
Chris Miller, climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace, says calling that a split is inaccurate.
He says the major players in the environmental movement are all on the same page.
"There is really not a split in the environmental community around this proposal," Miller says.
"If you look at the list of environmental groups that are supporting the Cape Wind project, it is a broad coalition of environmental groups."
Barbara Birdsey, an environmental activist, who is on the board of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, suggests that a split exists within the very organizations that Miller sees as part of a united front.
"It seems to come down to those people working on renewable [energy] as their main focus versus those that are working with wildlife protection programs."
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