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.

Harvard inked a deal yesterday to purchase 10 percent of annual electricity consumed on its Cambridge and Allston campuses from a leading wind provider in New England. This agreement, in which Harvard will acquire over 30 million kilowatt-hours of renewable energy, slates the University to become the largest institutional buyer of wind power in the region, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. ...Harvard will purchase 50 percent of the energy produced from First Wind's soon-to-be constructed wind farm in northern Maine for the next 15 years.

With more than a third of the major wind-energy projects in Massachusetts stalled by lawsuits or permit appeals, the Patrick administration has proposed a landmark bill that would streamline the state’s appeals process and make it possible to win approval of such projects much more quickly. Massachusetts now generates less than 1 percent of the nation’s wind energy, about 9 megawatts ...Without a change in the permitting process the state will not meet Governor Deval Patrick’s goal of producing 2,000 megawatts of wind power, enough for 800,000 homes, by 2020.

A company that builds upscale vacation condos has brought at least a temporary halt to the Brodie Mountain wind turbine project in the Berkshires, in which the town has a 6 percent stake. Texas-based Silverleaf Resorts was recently granted an injunction in connection with a lawsuit it filed two years ago, alleging that a permit for an access road to the project had expired.

U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said his department will "hopefully" decide by the end of the year whether to approve plans for what may be the nation's first offshore wind farm along the coast of Massachusetts. The Interior Department is working toward an "expeditious conclusion" of the approvals needed for Cape Wind in Nantucket Sound, Salazar said today. "We'll have a final decision to be made hopefully by the end of this year," he said.

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 in Nantucket Sound, visible to Wampanoag in Mashpee and on Martha's Vineyard. ..."We, the Wampanoag people, who opened our arms and allowed people to come here for religious freedoms, are now being threatened with our religion being taken away for the profits of one single group of investors," Green said.

To municipal wind power advocates, net metering is the Holy Grail. ...Net metering provisions virtually double what municipalities are currently paid for the power they generate through renewable energy. It also allowed the towns to get credits at the wholesale rate for their power ...But some Cape municipal and county officials are worried that wind turbines that are still in the planning stages will not get the benefits of net metering because of a cap the state Legislature imposed on the total amount of power that could be generated under the program.

The delegation, which includes representatives of every Island board of selectmen, the Dukes County Commission, Martha's Vineyard Commission and the Wampanoag tribe, has been trying without success for almost three weeks to get a meeting with the governor. Instead, the governor's office offered them time with the chief architect of the plan, the Secretary of the Department of Energy and Environmental Affairs, Ian Bowles.

Two utility-scale wind projects on hold in Berkshire County, with a combined 45 megawatts of capacity, would expand wind generated electricity in the state by about 500 percent and power the equivalent of 15,000 homes, according to local and state officials. But both are tied up in litigation filed by local property owners, and one of the projects has been delayed for more than five years. A bill pending in the Legislature might cut the time needed for permitting, eliminating much of the litigation-generated delays.

State energy and environmental officials assured Islanders that their voices will be heard and their concerns considered as the state's draft Ocean Plan nears finalization on December 31. "The secretary's perspective is that we're not going to ram our projects down the throats of a place that doesn't want them," said Deerin Babb-Brott, an assistant secretary to Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Ian Bowles.

Mayoral candidates James Shanley and Donna Holaday were open and honest when asked during a debate last week if the city should allow for more wind turbines to go up in Newburyport. "We blew it; we really blew it as a city on this," Holaday said. Saying city officials were "excited" at the chance to move forward and see alternative energy resources in the city when faced with the proposal by Mark Richey Woodworking, Holaday admitted they didn't have the research and data they needed to properly site it.

Native American rituals and beliefs have emerged as a surprising last-minute obstacle to federal approval of the nation's first offshore wind farm, threatening to significantly delay the Cape Wind project. Two Massachusetts tribes say the 130 proposed wind turbines in Nantucket Sound would disturb their spiritual sun greetings and submerged ancestral burying grounds. The Aquinnah and Mashpee Wampanoag tribes ...are pushing for the entire sound to be listed as a traditional cultural property on the National Register of Historic Places.

Two weeks ago, Patriot Renewables LLC told the Savoy Selectmen that it intends to build an eight-turbine wind farm in the mountain town. On Tuesday, the company set its sights on Adams as well. Todd Presson, chief operating officer of Patriot Renewables of Quincy, met with Town Administrator Jonathan Butler to inform him that the company is in the "very entry level" stages of expanding the project across the border into Adams.

Ian Bowles, Secretary of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, said Tuesday that the state is prepared to listen to the concerns Islanders have about provisions of the Oceans Act. He said that while Islanders have focused on the designation of areas west of the Vineyard for wind farm development, the state is actively exploring the potential for wind farm development in federal waters well south of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard.

Consultants working for Silverleaf Resorts said Wednesday that the $46 million Berkshire Wind Project in construction on top of Brodie Mountain threatens the potential for their $62 million time-share condominium project in development at the base of the mountain. Silverleaf is calling on Berkshire Wind to relocate three of its 10 turbines that are within 150 feet of the Snowy Owl Resort condo project's property line, said Chris Hodgkins, a consultant for Silverleaf and a former state representative for southern Berkshire County.

An automated review of 17 proposed wind turbines at the Massachusetts Military Reservation flagged five more as a presumed hazard to aviation, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration said yesterday. But when all is said and done, the reversal on those five turbines, which just one week earlier were considered OK, may be a mere blip on the radar screen, FAA spokesman Jim Peters said.