THE CAPE WIND DEBATE | G. F. MICHELSEN
It's a boondoggleWHAT'S GOING on in our back yard? Shrewd Yankees is what we're supposed to be, yet I'll tell you what's going on -- we are being swindled out of a treasure, and we're going along with it. Hell, we're making it happen, by default.
The treasure is Nantucket Sound, a sheltered triangle of tides, sandy islands, and gentle winds, the like of which does not exist between Cape Breton Island and the Chesapeake. It's in the heart of this triangle that an energy promoter plans to build a complex of 130 windmills as high as Rockefeller Center, covering an area the size of downtown Manhattan.This promoter has all the catchwords to aim at critiques like this. NIMBY is the first -- Not In My Back Yard. It's the code word for people who rely on, say, electricity, but would prefer that power plants clutter up someone else's view.Well, he's absolutely right. This is a backyard issue -- in exactly the same way people whose homes look over Mount Rushmore also have NIMBY issues, because they would gripe about someone setting up an oil rig on George Washington's nose.But let's be serious. Is Nantucket Sound Mount Rushmore? Of course not. It's far more beautiful. Nor is it a mere playground for plutocrats -- though the rich keep homes on the Sound, as they do near Rushmore. And it gives pleasure to far more people. Two million visit Mount Rushmore yearly, while 4.7 million flock to the Cape's South Shore, Nantucket, and Martha's Vineyard.Then there's the eco-argument. Clean energy is the catchword the promoter employs here. Windmills make all-American electricity that otherwise would have to be generated by evil uranium or by oil pumped in hot, hostile foreign places. But putting 130 electricity windmills in Nantucket Sound is the same as giving a giant, who is bleeding to death from a torn carotid, an IV the size of a louse. This society gorges itself on energy, gushing power from every orifice. By the most optimistic projections, all the juice generated by Nantucket Sound windmills will supply a pitiful one percent of electricity needs, for this region only. Even the tiniest amount of conservation would generate thousands of times more energy -- by saving it -- than the Nantucket Sound boondoggle. By its own calculations, Cape Wind will save the area a puny $25 million a year, whereas hiking efficiency standards on new cars by a mere 3 miles per gallon would generate $25 billion in savings nationally. Adding 7 cents to the gas tax would conserve the equivalent of $75 billion.Another of the phrases the promoter uses is "private sector." Private sector? Hogwash. Look at the facts. Not one windmill would ever be proposed here if the government were not giving away the Sound -- our Sound, America's Sound -- to developers, rent-free. And not one windmill would go up were it not for energy-related tax breaks. While Cape Wind refuses to open its books to scrutiny, outside experts reckon it will make around $70 million profit yearly, assuming no untoward events, like hurricanes. Oddly enough, the tax breaks Cape Wind would enjoy amount to roughly $70 million per annum. And all this at what cost? Here we need to keep things in perspective. The windmills will not turn Nantucket Sound into the South Bronx. But they will erode this most pristine environment and there will be hard economic effects. For instance, if one in every hundred of the area's 4.7 million annual visitors decides that he or she is not interested in summering in the shadow of Cape Wind's machines -- Boom! There goes millions of dollars out of our pockets.
Plus, according to the Beacon Hill Institute, the windmills will translate into 1,173 jobs lost on the shores of the Sound. Weigh that against the jobs Cape Wind says it will generate: between 30 and 150. Who is Cape Wind kidding when they say this will do us good? So I have to ask again -- what are we doing in Nantucket Sound? Sitting around when, on the eve of a crucial licensing deadline, we should be protesting at the State House, demanding that this unspoiled jewel be preserved for ourselves, our kids, and their kids to come. G. F. Michelsen was born on Cape Cod and has spent much of his life there. He is the author of 11 novels, including "Hard Bottom" and "The Art and Practice of Explosion." © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
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