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Cape Wind: The legal challenges

Print | Comments () Posted by David Beard, Globe Staff July 10, 2008 09:09 AM

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By Beth Daley, Globe Staff

If the federal government gives the okay for the 130-turbine Cape Wind project in Nantucket Sound later this year, one result is guaranteed: Lawsuits.

A wind farm in the North Sea

Opponents are dead set against the project being placed off Cape Cod in federal waters and have pledged to use every means possible to fight it.

In fact, they have been challenging incremental decisions all along, from filing a lawsuit trying to block a wind test tower more than five years ago to challenging a decision allowing transmission lines to be laid in state waters. Cape Wind has perservered in all the cases - included two recent ones.

In June, Superior Court Justice Robert J. Kane dismissed a case brought by the town of Barnstable challenging state environmental approval of the project. Then this week, the state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife determined it was up to the federal government - not them - to rule if the wind farm would harm birds and other wildlife. The state's only stake in the matter is determining if wildlife would be harmed by the project's transmission line - the sole piece of the project in state waters.

And if you haven't had enough wind news, there is more.

The Minerals Management Service, the federal agency overseeing the project also recently finalized rules for offshore renewable energy: http://www.mms.gov/ooc/press/2008/press0708.htm