Salisbury officials have only recently become aware that 10 wind turbines could be built less than a quarter-mile off Salisbury Beach if the state's draft Ocean Management Plan were adopted. A serious concern of both Salisbury Selectman Jerry Klima and Planning Board Chairman Don Egan is that after only recently seeing a map showing the turbine area less than 1,500 feet from shore ..."I never saw anything like this before that from the state," Klima said yesterday.

Island officials differed over what was achieved at their meeting Friday with state Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Ian Bowles. A selectman from each Island town, as well as officials representing Dukes County, the Martha's Vineyard Commission (MVC), and the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay head (Aquinnah) attended the Boston session. But while they all heard the same message from Mr. Bowles, they brought home varying opinions about how much control the Island will have over large-scale wind power development in near-shore waters.

Two large masts have been cut down and a wind speed recorder stolen from the Flimby Hall Farm wind farm site. The masts were cut down last week, according to Maryport police. Samantha Crosby, West Energy's project manager for the Flimby site, said that the company believed the act was vandalism rather than a protest.

The Westport Alternative Energy Committee (AEC) has decided to hire an engineering consultant to conduct preliminary assessments of two parcels of town-owned land to determine if they would be suitable locations for a municipal wind turbine project. The AEC voted unanimously Thursday to ask Atlantic Design Engineers of Sandwich to look at two specific sites ...to gauge whether or not they would be suitable for a commercial-sized turbine installation.

After months of review, the City Council's Planning and Development subcommittee will issue several recommendations for changes to key areas of the wind turbine ordinance, including lengthening the setbacks and strengthening the notification process to abutters when a proposal for a turbine is filed with the city.

The town will look at three locations as possibilities for a large wind turbine. Using $8,800 allocated to Newbury by the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, the town's Alternative Energy Committee will retain a Beverly consulting firm to conduct three energy workshops and prepare an application to the Technology Collaborative for a full-scale feasibility study on three possible turbine sites.

The debate over whether to build the country's first offshore wind farm in Nantucket Sound is no stranger to challenges. The latest - a bid by the Wampanoag tribes on Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard to have the 560-square-mile Sound declared eligible for the National Register of Historic Places - may top the list. From impacts on fisheries to new requirements for construction along Nantucket Sound, a finding that the Sound is eligible for the register could have wide-ranging effects on development and economic activity, opponents of the move argue.

Six thousand years ago, according to native legend and scientific calculation, Nantucket Sound was dry land, and people probably lived and hunted and fished there. Until global warming caused the sea to rise and cover the place. Ironically, the fact of that long-ago drowning now has become the basis of the latest challenge to the Cape Wind proposal to build a wind farm in Nantucket Sound. The big selling point of Cape Wind is that it would generate power without contributing to global warming, sea level rise and coastal flooding.

A Patrick administration proposal that critics say would strip local control from the siting of wind turbines is still awaiting action on Beacon Hill. And some West County town officials say revisions in the legislation don't go far enough in addressing their concerns. The Hawley Planning Board wrote this week to Gov. Deval Patrick and area legislators opposing the Wind Energy Siting Reform Act.

The November 5 decision by the Martha's Vineyard Commission to create a district of critical planning concern (DCPC) for wind energy projects across the Island, but excepting Edgartown, demonstrated unusual discretion on the part of the regional agency. Spreading, not restricting, its portfolio is the customary MVC practice. Several commission members were not happy about the exception, going so far as to suggest that heeding to the Edgartown selectmen's request that their town be left out of this particular DCPC was unwarranted. After all, their argument went, it was just three Edgartonians asking for the exception, not really the town.

The Cape's parade of wind power turbines has begun in earnest, as Harwich town meeting joined Wellfleet and Brewster fall town meetings Thursday night in authorizing the use of town land to build the towering turbines. Although the two parcels of town-owned land were relatively large at 72 acres for property off Westgate Road, and 19 acres off Headwaters Drive, setbacks to protect adjacent properties limited the possible number of turbines to just two.

While Massachusetts recipients of federal stimulus money collectively report 12,374 jobs saved or created, a Globe review shows that number is wildly exaggerated. Organizations that received stimulus money miscounted jobs, filed erroneous figures, or claimed jobs for work that has not yet started. The Globe's finding is based on the federal government's just-released accounts of stimulus spending at the end of October. ...But in interviews with recipients, the Globe found that several openly acknowledged creating far fewer jobs than they have been credited for.

A new state ocean management plan will likely leave control over the size of renewable energy projects in state waters in the hands of regional planning authorities such as the Cape Cod Commission and Martha's Vineyard Commission. In a letter sent yesterday ...Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs Ian Bowles agreed to change the draft plan released in July.

When the Pilgrims arrived in America, it was the Wampanoag who greeted them peacefully so the newcomers could escape religious persecution. Now the tribe is having to fight for their own religious freedoms. The Wampanoag, also known as "The People of the First Light", have delayed the construction of America's first offshore wind farm, reports Associated Press. The Mashpee and Aquinnah Wampanoag practice sacred religious rituals which they say require an unblocked view of the horizon, in particular, the sunrise.

Voters will consider ways to save money and the environment during the town's 13-article special town meeting Thursday. If voters sign on, the town will pursue building two wind turbines on town-owned land, placing large solar panels on the elementary school roof and placing a "solar garden" of panels at the transfer station. The special town meeting is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m.

From a blustery perch over a Cape Cod beach, Chuckie Green gestures toward a stretch of horizon where he says construction of the nation's first offshore wind farm would destroy his Indian tribe's religion. The Wampanoag - the tribe that welcomed the Pilgrims in the 17th century and known as "The People of the First Light" - practice sacred rituals requiring an unblocked view of the sunrise. That view won't exist once 130 turbines, each over 400 feet tall, are built several miles from shore in Nantucket Sound, visible to Wampanoag in Mashpee and on Martha's Vineyard.

Massachusetts' top historic preservation officer has dealt a setback to the proposed Nantucket Sound wind farm, ruling yesterday that the body of water is eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places because of its cultural significance for two Native American tribes. In a letter released late in the afternoon, Brona Simon, state historic preservation officer, said she believes that Nantucket Sound is so culturally important to two Wampanoag tribes that it should be eligible to be listed on the National Register as a traditional cultural property.

After hammering out several conditions under which to grant the permit, the board voted 4-1 in favor of the project. Planning Board member Daniel Miller cast his vote as an abstention because he wanted the ski resort to build a smaller wind turbine, which he said would still meet the ski resort's utility needs but have less visual impact on the rest of the town.

Cape Wind Associates LLC faces yet another hurdle in its eight-year quest to build a wind farm in Nantucket Sound. A decision on whether to list Nantucket Sound on the National Register of Historic Places is now in the hands of the National Park Service. A ruling to list the Sound would not automatically kill Cape Wind's proposed wind farm, but it could lead to delays in the project's construction, as the project would be forced to meet new requirements.

Despite significant opposition in Western Massachusetts, state environmental affairs secretary Ian Bowles is pushing hard to get a controversial wind-turbine law passed before the legislative session ends on Nov. 18. The bill could benefit a wind-energy firm, recently relocated to Boston, whose chief executive helped co-author the proposed law and whose financial backers have close ties to the Obama administration.