Agency report helps bolster Cape Wind
Finds project would not harm local environment
A benchmark was reached yesterday in efforts to expand clean energy as a key federal agency concluded that the nation's first proposed offshore wind farm would have no major adverse effect on the environment of Nantucket Sound.
But Cape Wind's seven-year quest to win final approval is not over, and the incoming Obama administration will face a dilemma with the 130-turbine wind farm, which is tied to the president-elect's energy agenda and his political allegiances.
The project's supporters, including major environmental groups, celebrated the release of the final environmental impact report by the Minerals Management Service, but they acknowledged that the project will continue to face challenges. Cape Wind's opponents, concerned about navigational hazards, property values, and the view of the turbines from beaches and historical sites, have promised lawsuits.
And an Interior Department inspector general's investigation of the minerals agency's handling of the process is underway.
Calling his agency's report "a milestone," culminating years of review by government agencies, Randall Luthi, Minerals Management Service director, said in an interview that Cape Wind could become "a bellwether for many offshore wind projects to come."
The next step is for the new secretary of the interior to decide whether to award Cape Wind a lease for the project, and federal officials expect he will be strongly influenced by the favorable review.
The decision cannot be made for at least 30 days, which will push the pending approval of Cape Wind into the Obama administration, at which point US Senator Ken Salazar will have taken the helm at the Interior Department.
Several pending federal, state, and local permits also remain. But the project's supporters say they expect final approval of all permits could come this spring if the department's decision is favorable.
Jim Gordon, Cape Wind president, said he hopes construction of the $1 billion wind farm could begin by the end of the year, and that it could start producing energy by early 2012.
"We're right in view of the end zone," Gordon said at a news conference in Boston yesterday.
But there are signs the protracted political struggle that has slowed Cape Wind will continue.
Senator Edward M. Kennedy, a longtime opponent of the project, issued a statement saying he did not believe the favorable review of Cape Wind would stand.
"By taking this action, the Interior Department has virtually assured years of continued public conflict and contentious litigation," the statement said.
Over the past several years, former governor Mitt Romney and US Representative William D. Delahunt have worked against the project, and Kennedy was criticized for driving behind-the-scenes efforts to kill it.
While most expect President-elect Barack Obama, who has said clean energy and climate change will be top priorities of his administration, to embrace Cape Wind, the issue could be sensitive politically. Obama is a close ally of Governor Deval Patrick, who has been an outspoken supporter of Cape Wind and said yesterday he would work with the new administration on the project.
But Obama is also beholden to Kennedy, whose endorsement of Obama over Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary was viewed as a game-changer.
"The importance of the Cape Wind project is that it has gone through such an exhaustive review process," said Nathanael Greene, director of renewable energy policy at the Natural Resources Defense Council, which supports the wind farm. "If it fails now, it's not going to fail because of real environmental problems, but because of back-door political shenanigans, and that will be a real unfortunate sign of our country's commitment to clean energy."
US Representative Edward Markey, chairman of the new House Select Committee on Energy Independence, issued a statement saying he would review the final report on Cape Wind "to verify that the project meets all the necessary tests. If it does, I believe that the project should move forward."
The central group leading the charge against Cape Wind, the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, has promised lawsuits to prevent construction of the wind farm and announced that it has started raising money for a "legal defense fund."
Audra Parker, executive director of the group, said that because the Minerals Management Service has not finalized its overall rules for offshore renewable energy projects, the review of Cape Wind is premature. Clean energy groups countered that the rules are a distinct process from the review of Cape Wind, which was proposed years earlier and triggered the rulemaking process.
The Minerals Management Service, the agency charged with evaluating the impact of Cape Wind on public concerns including wildlife, aviation, ship navigation, and tourism, received 42,000 public comments before it published its final review. A draft environmental review of the project, released in January 2008, was also favorable.
The final report's new content includes findings from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the US Fish and Wildlife Service that Cape Wind would not jeopardize the survival of key wildlife species in the region.
It also includes recommendations from the US Coast Guard for avoiding navigational hazards.
The Interior Department's inspector general is conducting an investigation of how the Minerals Management Service handled its review of Cape Wind, said Luthi, calling the inquiry "unusual."
Greene said the lesson of Cape Wind is that more study and better approaches are needed to ensure that clean energy projects can be adopted as quickly as possible.
"I hope we can get smarter about how we think about offshore wind projects," he said. "We need to be able to move them much faster and develop a more robust, scientific, and public consensus about where they should go."
The Minerals Management Service's final environmental impact statement for Cape Wind is available online at: www.mms.gov/offshore/AlternativeEnergy/CapeWind.htm.
Bina Venkataraman can be reached at bina@globe.com and Stephanie Ebbert can be reached at ebbert@globe.com. 