Thursday, 4:30 PM
WSJ jumps into Cape Wind controversy
(AP Photo/Illustration-Craig Olmsted, Cape Wind Associates LLC)
An artist's conception of the Cape Wind project.
By Globe Staff
Proponents of a wind farm in Nantucket Sound got some help from an unexpected quarter this week: the Wall Street Journal.
A Journal editorial charged opponents of the Cape Wind project with "environmental phoniness," saying they're against the project because it's an "offense against the scenery."
But a leader of a group that is battling the project said today there are good reasons that the wind farm project shouldn't be there.
Audra Parker, director of strategic planning at the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, said this is not a case of "not in my backyard" syndrome. She said there are environmental, economic, and public safety reasons the project shouldn't be built.
"There are better ways to go. There's better places in deeper locations. You don't need to sacrifice Nantucket Sound," she said.
The newspaper's famously conservative editorial page didn't say whether it supported or opposed the project itself. It said that "reasonable people can disagree on the merits of putting turbines in Nantucket Sound."
But it said the controversy was "useful mainly as a real-world test of whether some of the world's most privileged liberals wear their ideals all the time, or only when it suits them."
It also said the Cape Wind controversy is a "perennially awkward story" for U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who opposes the project and whose family has a compound on the Cape.
A Kennedy spokeswoman defended his position. The senator opposes the project "because of the numerous unanswered questions about its impact on local fisheries, navigational safety, and the local environment and economy," Melissa Wagoner said in a statement.
"He also doesn't believe it's appropriate to hand any one developer 25 square miles of public property on a no-bid basis and before national standards for offshore wind farms are in place to protect coastal communities," she said.
