On Cape, gales of hypocrisy
THE CAPE WIND project isn't the only wind power project causing arguments on the Sandy Spit. In the town of Eastham on the outer edge of Cape Cod, there's a lesser-known wind controversy, which like the bigger battle has divided otherwise enlightened folks along lines of petty self-interest.
And, like its larger cousin, it makes you wonder: Why aren't those likely to be affected first by global warming more eager to take the lead on alternative energy?
Heading to the Outer Cape on Route 6, you go past the Orleans Rotary, and for the next 10 miles or so you're driving through Eastham -- a proud, venerable municipality best known to passersby for its low speed limits, local zoning that somehow overlooked the establishment of a town center, and the Windmill Green (across the highway from Town Hall), where a weekend-long celebration is held every fall.
The centerpiece of the Windmill Green, of course, is a large, historic windmill, lovingly maintained by a town windmill keeper through the years amid nostalgia for the town's agrarian past (whose main remnant, the Eastham turnip, has only limited appeal). Eastham has beautiful beaches, lovely woods and ponds, and enough Pilgrim and Native American history to bolster any town's boosters. But every year, it's windmill this and windmill that, all hail the mighty windmill.
So you'd think this would be one place where folks could unite in appreciation for wind power -- not only for its economic and environmental benefits, but also for the structures needed to harness that power.
Taking its cue from Hull, which has two operating wind towers, and other Massachusetts communities looking at modest wind-power projects, the town's Energy Committee whipped up a plan to put up four towers on a 12-acre town parcel right off the state highway. But, like most things having to do with wind power and Cape Cod, there has been loud opposition, primarily from those who would be closest to the turbine towers.
A proposed zoning bylaw that would have permitted the Eastham wind project to proceed was withdrawn from this month's Town Meeting warrant, so that planners can address the abutters' concerns -- such possibilities as falling towers, flying blades, and declining property values -- no matter how unfounded, or simply trivial. It's still possible that a modified bylaw may lead to an acceptable, scaled-down solution (maybe they could disguise them as cell towers).
Other Cape Cod towns are hoping to take advantage of available state funding with their own wind projects. But there are no illusions that any of these will make a significant contribution to meeting the region's energy needs.
Meanwhile, the one large-scale wind project that could significantly reduce the Cape's dependence on electricity generated by fossil fuels and nuclear power continues to grind through an epic permitting process, which so far has not turned up any significantly negative environmental impacts. Yet the Cape Wind proposal to erect 130 wind turbines in Nantucket Sound, each more than 400 feet high, faces over-my-dead-body opposition from, among many others, two of the greatest environmental advocates of our time: Senator Edward Kennedy and his nephew, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose family compound has a view of the Nantucket Sound that would be forever changed by these giant windmills.
If such people as the Kennedys, who understand the urgency of addressing global warming and are in a position to help projects like Cape Wind succeed, are unable to transcend their own interests, then why should ordinary citizens, like the residents of Eastham, be expected to act in the public interest and the planet's interest?
Out on Cape Cod, where the winds keep blowing and the waters are ever-rising, the municipal buildings and trophy houses and SUVs and pickups just keep getting bigger and fancier. Even for many of more modest means, like the Eastham abutters, the windfall of rising property values (only slightly tempered by the market slowdown) appears to be of far more concern than any benefits that might be realized by locally generated wind power.
After all, a Windmill on the Green is one thing, but going green with wind turbines is quite another.
Hamilton Kahn, who lives in Truro, is host of "In The News" on WOMR, 92.1 FM in Provincetown. 
