Opinions
Like The Race, its channel counterpart on the western end of the island, Wicopessett Passage, just off Napatree Point near the Watch Hill section of Westerly, is notorious for swirling currents, confused seas and powerful winds that have done in vessels much larger than our 18-foot-long, 2-foot-wide boats.
Let us leave Wicopessett Passage momentarily and soar 300 miles north to Mount Redington in Franklin County, Maine.
A few summers ago my son, Tom, and I hiked through wildflowers and across streams, carefully following landmarks on a hand-drawn map, en route to the 4,010-foot summit. As we approached the top the wind, blowing down off nearby South Crocker Mountain and Black Nubble, began to pick up, and I was happy to stay below treeline and out of the powerful gusts.
Redington is one of only two of the 67 mountains that rise above 4,000 feet in New England without an officially maintained trail to the summit, and Tom and I alternately lamented and appreciated this distinction. On the one hand getting to the top, on our quest to climb all the New England 4,000-footers, was somewhat more complicated, but it also was more rewarding because we had the mountain and all its splendor to ourselves that afternoon.
By a strange twist both Mount Redington and the waters off Watch Hill are in the news this week, and calling my introduction to the topic long-winded would be entirely appropriate. I speak today of wind - more specifically, attempts to harness this natural force and convert it to energy.
A New York company called Allco Renewable Energy Group announced it hopes to make Rhode Island the first state to host an offshore wind farm, and one of the four sites it plans to evaluate by building test towers is right near Wicopessett Passage. (Another site is off the south shore of Block Island; the other two are off Little Compton in eastern Rhode Island).
At almost the same time Allco made its announcement, the Maine Land Use Regulatory Commission voted 4-2 against a plan by Maine Mountain Power to build an 18-turbine wind farm on Black Nubble near Redington, ruling the turbines would be visibly intrusive from a scenic ridge along which passes the fabled Appalachian Trail. A year earlier the commission had scrapped a plan to build a wind farm on the summit of Redington, and proponents had hoped in vain that the Black Nubble project satisfied concerns about its impact on the mountainscape.
While the Black Nubble project was shot down, the commission later in the day approved a separate application by TransCanada Maine Wind Development to build a 44-turbine wind farm near the Canadian border in Franklin County. It ruled this project would not be as visibly intrusive to the highland scenery as the Black Nubble plan.
This week has been a particularly windy one for government regulators: The U.S. Minerals Management Service also declared that a wind farm proposed off Cape Cod in Massachusetts would have little lasting impact on wildlife, navigation or tourism. This ruling could clear the way for construction of a 130-turbine wind farm in Nantucket Sound, 5 miles from the nearest coastline.
With oil prices hovering at $100 a barrel and longstanding opposition to coal and nuclear power, the mounting pressure to develop wind farms as an alternative energy source poses a dilemma for environmentalists.
On the one hand wind is free, natural and doesn't produce greenhouse gases. On the other turbines are unsightly, noisy and deadly for many birds and bats. What's a tree-hugger to do?
I'll be the first to admit I don't have an easy answer. Most of the objections to the Cape Cod project have come not from ardent conservationists but from noble bluebloods who cringe at the thought of staring at whirring windmill blades while they sip daiquiris on the verandas of their oceanfront compounds.
At the same time, I'd feel better about generating cheaper, greener energy if so much of it weren't used to power an ever-expanding array of electricity-sucking consumer electronics and to heat the growing number of 4,000-square-foot McMansions.
I say: Before we start defiling shorelines and mountaintops with manmade contraptions, let's spend more energy on conservation.
Besides, getting through Wicopessett Passage in a kayak, or climbing to the top of Redington, is hard enough without having to duck beneath a spinning turbine.
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