Romney eyes Boston Harbor for wind farm
Governor Mitt Romney, a staunch opponent of a wind farm proposed for a site off the Cape and islands, is floating the idea of an alternative location that he finds more suited to power-generating turbines: Boston Harbor.
The prospect of renewable energy in Boston Harbor has intrigued academics and environmental advocates for years. The Urban Harbors Institute at the University of Massachusetts at Boston is poised to release a study recommending construction of several turbines on five Harbor Islands that already are connected to the power grid, thereby making it easier and cheaper to distribute the energy.
In several recent statements, the governor has mentioned the harbor and its islands as alternative locations for the renewable energy project that many Cape Cod and island residents fear will spoil a pristine Nantucket Sound.
''It may end up being beautiful, but let's try it somewhere else," Romney told the Globe last month, suggesting the outskirts of Boston Harbor. Arguing against Nantucket Sound as a location, he said: ''Let's not do the first one in a place which is not only a tourist magnet worth extraordinary dollars to us, but, in my opinion, is a national treasure."
In an interview yesterday, Romney acknowledged that Boston's inner harbor may be too congested with shipping to accommodate wind turbines, but suggested that other areas off the coast of Greater Boston be considered. Though opponents of Cape Wind Associates' project are criticized for protecting their own backyard, the governor said he is merely trying to find more appropriate locations for wind power, even if that means a location in Boston's backyard.
''We recognize we have a responsibility to have wind power generation, just as other states do," he said. ''But don't put it in those particular locations, and we'll work with you to develop other locations."
Boston Harbor was already considered and rejected as a potential alternative location for the Cape Wind project during the environmental review conducted by the US Army Corps of Engineers. The Army Corps decided it lacked the space to generate energy comparable with Cape Wind's peak 420 megawatts, said Larry Rosenberg, chief of public affairs for the New England District of the Army Corps. A smaller project could be proposed there, he said.
The Urban Harbors Institute study envisions a relatively tiny energy output, just two or three turbines, said director Jack Wiggin. Development would require the endorsement of the 13-member board of the Boston Harbor Islands Partnership and the islands' city, state, or private owners. The Massachusetts Technology Collaborative requested the study to find ways to increase energy generation by using solar and wind power.
Long and Moon islands are owned by the city, Thompson Island by the Outward Bound Education Center, and Peddocks Island is owned by the state. Spectacle Island is owned jointly by the city and state. Though the islands are a national park area, development would be overseen by Massachusetts environmental review, Wiggin said.
Like many opponents, Romney has voiced concern that the proposed Cape Wind project would ruin a beautiful vista. ''I've seen wind farms," he said, when he testified against the project at an Army Corps hearing last month. ''They're not pretty."
Nonetheless, his communications director, Eric Fehrnstrom, said that the harbor would be an appropriate location because it already has industrial uses, such as the Deer Island sewage treatment facility. ''I think a wind farm in a location like Boston Harbor has a much different feel to it than in the middle of Nantucket Sound," he said this month.
Romney and his aides said there is no specific proposal before the state to build turbines in the harbor or on the islands.
The city of Boston, meantime, did not reject Romney's suggestion. The city is ''actively interested in the outcome" of the UMass report on placing turbines on the islands, said Brad Swing, a specialist in the mayor's office of environmental services.
But the governor's harbor idea put environmentalists who endorse the Cape Wind project in a difficult position yesterday. Some advocates commonly work to protect cities from becoming the dumping ground for projects that wealthy areas like Nantucket find undesirable. Yet many have embraced Cape Wind's project as environmentally and aesthetically benign and were loath to echo what they consider opponents' ''not in my backyard" complaints.
''I'm certain that Governor Romney didn't mean to imply that Boston's beautiful harbor was any less important than scenic Cape Cod," said Bruce Berman, spokesman for Save the Harbor/Save the Bay. ''That said, any proposal to put a wind farm in this part of the world deserves serious consideration, because we need environmentally responsible energy sources and it's clear that wind is one of them."
Seth Kaplan, senior attorney for the Conservation Law Foundation, called the historically industrial harbor an appropriate location to explore. ''Far worse has been visited upon the harbor and the citizens of Boston," Kaplan said. ''You've got to remember, Spectacle Island was on fire for about 10 years. On the scale of indignities visited on these neighborhoods, it's a pretty small one."
Spectacle Island was once a city dump, and underground garbage fires burned continuously. It is expected to reopen as a park as early as this summer.
While small projects of several turbines are helpful, he said, Massachusetts will need many more renewable energy projects to meet the state goals established in 2004 for increasing renewable energy. The Massachusetts Renewable Portfolio Standard requires utilities to buy 4 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2009, and Romney's Climate Protection Plan, aimed at reducing greenhouse gases, reiterates his intention to meet that standard.
''Nobody has figured out how we can meet that goal, the governor's goal, without building at least one project of the scale, scope, and size of Cape Wind in the next couple of years," Kaplan said. ''We need to go beyond boutique solutions. We also need the big warehouse, wholesale solutions."
Added Mark Rodgers, a spokesman for Cape Wind, ''If we're serious about making a transition away from dirty imported energy, then the more clean energy projects that can be done in more locations, as soon as possible, the better off we're all going to be."
The governor and legislators who oppose Cape Wind's plans find themselves legally hamstrung. Cape Wind Associates proposes to build 130 wind turbines within a 24-square-mile shallow area of Horseshoe Shoal that lies in federal waters, beyond the state's 3-mile boundary line. As a result, the state has limited power to reject the plan, and its agencies have limited regulatory oversight.
This week, the Cape and islands' legislative delegation wrote to Romney calling for a moratorium like the one New Jersey's acting governor, Richard J. Codey, issued last month, denying permits to proposed offshore wind projects while the state develops guidelines for their location.
''It's really a question of how aggressive does the governor want to be in asserting state authority here," said Senator Robert A. O'Leary, a Barnstable Democrat.
But Fehrnstrom said that such an order would not block Cape Wind's development, because it is proposed in federal waters.
Stephanie Ebbert can be reached at ebbert@globe.com. Scott Greenberger of the Globe staff and Globe correspondent Janette Neuwahl contributed. 