Wind farm project dealt setback by US agency
A week after receiving a blessing from Massachusetts environmental regulators, the long-delayed wind farm proposed off Cape Cod has been dealt an apparent setback by the federal agency that will make the final decision on the controversial project.
The Minerals Management Service, which had been scheduled to deliver a draft environmental report that would signal its intentions for the project this month, said the report is "taking longer than expected" and will not be ready before late summer.
The delay means that a final decision on the project will be postponed at least until summer 2008.
The delay, on one level, was seen merely as a sign of the complex issues confronting regulators as they consider the nation's first proposal for an offshore wind farm; the agency has also postponed the release of a draft of new regulations for all offshore energy projects. But some proponents worried that it might mean the project is running into trouble.
The project's developer, Cape Wind Associates, said the wind farm is being held to higher scrutiny than other energy projects would be.
"As it is, we're into the sixth year of permitting for Cape Wind," said Mark Rodgers, a Cape Wind spokesman. "We're having to pass a higher bar than any of Massachusetts' fossil fuel or nuclear power plants had to."
Cape Wind's plan to build 130 wind turbines in a 25-mile area of Nantucket Sound has whipped up controversy among residents of the Cape, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket, who fear that the project would industrialize the sound and threaten tourism. US Senator Edward M. Kennedy, former governor Mitt Romney, and former attorney general Thomas F. Reilly are among the powerful politicians fighting the project, and congressional efforts have nearly killed Cape Wind's chances several times.
Opponents said yesterday that the delay is appropriate: "It's the largest offshore development in the world, and it's not only complicated, but it is riddled with conflicts and problems, so this process should take time," said Ernie Corrigan, a spokesman for the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound that was formed to fight the project.
Nicolette Nye, a spokeswoman for the Minerals Management Service said in a statement that the delay is due to the fact that the agency is in uncharted territory.
"Offshore alternative energy is a new frontier for the nation," Nye said. "Thus the agency is proceeding with the review of the Cape Wind Energy Project in an appropriately deliberate and diligent manner."
Proponents and advocates for clean energy say the proposal should be embraced because it would produce about 79 percent of the daily power needs of the Cape and Islands, pollution-free.
"Given the extraordinarily lengthy environmental review this pioneering clean energy project has undergone, any further delay is unfortunate," said Sue Reid, director of the Conservation Law Foundation's Clean Energy and Climate Change Initiative
Reid pointed to yesterday's international findings on global warming as further evidence of a need to act quickly.
"That said, we hope the additional time will be used to ensure the environmental impact statement is robust and moves quickly to a final decision," she said.
Just last week, the state's environmental affairs secretary gave the project the green light. But the wind farm, planned for federal water, needs approval from the US government.
The Army Corps of Engineers had issued a largely favorable draft review and was completing its final review of the project's environmental impact statement in 2005. But the Energy Policy Act of that year transferred oversight of offshore energy projects to Minerals Management, the agency responsible for offshore oil drilling, and asked the agency to design regulations for such projects, which were suddenly being proposed along the nation's coastlines.
Cape Wind was the first wind farm proposed on the Outer Continental Shelf. A second proposal, off Long Island, is being reviewed by Minerals Management.
Stephanie Ebbert can be reached at ebbert@globe.com. 
