Guard proposes Cape wind farm
Project could be the state's largest
The Massachusetts National Guard said yesterday that it has proposed building a wind farm on the Massachusetts Military Reservation that would become the state's largest source of wind energy.
As the first of many steps toward building up to 17 wind turbines on the 22,000-acre facility on Cape Cod, the Guard filed a site plan for review with the Federal Aviation Administration and Air Force Space Command.
The project could produce up to 34 megawatts, aiding Governor Deval Patrick's efforts to develop 2,000 megawatts of wind power in Massachusetts by 2020. There are 11 wind turbines across the state, with a total capacity of 6.8 megawatts, said Robert Keough, spokesman for the state's Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. Keough said the ambitious plan for the reservation could potentially provide power for the entire facility.
The proposal has received support from numerous elected officials, including Patrick, State Senate President Therese Murray, and US Representative William D. Delahunt, a Quincy Democrat.
"Putting wind turbines at [the Massachusetts Military Reservation] makes sense both economically and environmentally," said Murray, a Plymouth Democrat.
The plan has also had the support of community activists who protested the Cape Wind Project, a controversial proposal to build 130 wind turbines off Cape Cod in Nantucket Sound.
"It's something we've been saying all along, that you can say yes to wind, but no to Cape Wind," said Audra Parker, executive director of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound.
Cape Wind spokesman Mark Rodgers said the project considered the military reservation as a potential site.
"We determined placing the same kind of wind farm there as we're looking to do offshore could probably produce half as much energy," he said. "That said, there certainly is good potential to do wind development at that site."
Before the National Guard's plan goes forward, the Federal Aviation Administration will review it to determine if it poses a hazard to aviation. Wind turbines can interfere with radar signals, a complication Cape Wind has come up against, said Jim Peters, an FAA spokesman.
The initial ruling for any project that requires an airspace study, as the National Guard's project probably will, is always that it is hazardous to aviation, Peters said. But if a project is found to be a hazard, the FAA provides a list of ways to mitigate the problem. Suggestions could include reducing the height of the turbines, shifting their location, or equipping Otis Air National Guard Base with a new radar system.
There have been no other specific proposals to build wind turbines on state land yet, Keough said, but the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs will be discussing the idea at public meetings on the Cape and in the Berkshires in coming weeks.
The department hopes to get ideas on how the state should balance what Keough called "the protection of open spaces" with the "challenge of climate change and the need to increase our use of renewable energy."
Located in the northwestern corner of the Cape over the Sagamore Lens, the area's sole aquifer, , the military reservation is the site of a major environmental cleanup, Keough said. Over years of exercises there, contaminants had seeped into the groundwater, but Guard spokeswoman Lynda Wadsworth said the reservation is making many efforts to ensure training now is safe for the environment. .
Vivian Nereim can be reached at vnereim@globe.com. 
