Generally speaking, New England uses a lot of energy during the winter. It gets cold here and people like to be warm. When a wind farm was proposed offshore a few years ago, many of the residents of Cape Cod opposed it saying that it would ruin their view and do horrible things to the environment. Since many of these people were very influential, the project was successfully blocked. Well. some other Massachusetts residents who would see the wind turbines have a different perspective on the subject.
Boston.com reported Friday that a group of residents of Cuttyhunk Island, off the coast of Massachusetts, have stated that they would accept a wind farm off the coast of the island. According to the article:
"By year's end, the state Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs is expected to complete an ocean management plan and decide whether to allow wind farms in the area. The draft plan includes 100 turbines about 3 miles off the southern coast of Martha's Vineyard in waters along the wildlife refuge and former Navy bombing range Nomans Land. Another 66 turbines are proposed off the southwestern coast of Cuttyhunk."
The residents of Martha's Vineyard have formed a group called Let Vineyarders Decide to protest the idea of windmills. The question has become whether the residents of the Vineyard have the authority to stop all or part of the wind farm. The residents of Cuttyhunk see the windmills as a way of helping them deal with the high cost of electricity on the island. Cuttyhunk is not a 'tourist' island, and the people who live there have a median income of $22,344.
One of the objections to the wind farm is from local fishermen, who are concerned about possible threats to fisheries I know that the US Navy has sunk old (cleaned out and decontaminated) ships off the Atlantic coast to create artificial reefs that have increased marine life, so I am a little confused about whey the fishermen think the turbines would have a negative impact on marine life.
The current governor of Massachusetts supports wind farms, so it should be interesting to see what develops here. I suspect that because of the amount of constant wind off the New England coast, this would be a good area to begin to use wind energy. I know that Rhode Island is also moving forward on constructing a wind farm. On January 8,2009, Reuters.com posted a story stating that Deepwater Wind is scheduled to start construction on a wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island in 2010.
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