In the ongoing debate on these pages regarding Cape Wind's proposal to install 130 towers in Nantucket Sound, facts often have taken a back seat to emotion. ...A key question is: How much will the project cost and what is the impact of the cost and the ongoing maintenance and security on the cost of power produced by the proposed Cape Wind turbines? ...The financial data are easily provided by the folks at Cape Wind. Instead, by withholding vital information about the project, Cape Wind has fostered an atmosphere of mistrust and encouraged circulation of misinformation by proponents and opponents alike. Let's have all the facts.

There is a face-off brewing between two federal agencies over the fate of birds in Nantucket Sound, centering on the Cape Wind energy project. At issue is whether the U.S. Minerals Management Service defers to the cautionary advice of its expert peer, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, or will it ramrod the Cape Wind project forward, driven by political considerations? ...In the apparent hurry to permit the Cape Wind project this year, Minerals Management seems poised to ignore the Fish & Wildlife Service. Citizen action is needed to get the message across to Minerals Management: "Proceed with caution. Do not play 'wind turbine Russian Roulette' with endangered species. Move Cape Wind elsewhere, out of harm's way!"

Following an overwhelming display of project opposition at the March public hearings, Cape Wind is now attempting to spin a batch of seriously critical comments into good news. Cape Wind's Mark Rodgers recently claimed that the vast majority of the public comments supported the project. But an MMS spokesperson has since confirmed that Cape Wind's claim is merely "their interpretation" of the comments available for review on the MMS Web site. "If a respondent replied that he or she ‘favored the project,' that has little use to us for analytical purposes," wrote Drew Malcomb, MMS chief of public affairs. "If the respondent replied that additional information or data exists on commercial-fishing runs, for example, that would be of great interest to us and useful as we develop our final EIS."

Wind energy opponents often rattle off a litany of objections: Windmills aren't aesthetically pleasing (a notion many dispute); they pose a danger to migrating birds; they're noisy; they're inefficient and expensive. But a new proposal for a deep-water, off-shore wind farm answers all the skeptics' objections and, in addition to its environmental benefits, could be an economic boon to Fall River. Blue H USA LLC has recently installed the world's first deep-water windmill off the coast of Italy and now wants to bring that technology to the SouthCoast ...It turns out answering the critics is actually a benefit to the technology, as 90 percent of the potential energy from wind is well offshore in deep water.

I think the first letter written by state Division of Marine Fisheries director Paul Diodati regarding Cape Wind, dated Feb. 20, that recaps many of the fishing industry's concerns, should be given more weight than the second version. I think observation of the president of Massachusetts Fishermen's Partnership, Ed Barrett, regarding the long arm of Deval is spot-on, as Patrick has demonstrated a propensity to change laws if necessary to help his friends overcome obstacles. Deval raised eyebrows when he recommended changes to Chapter 91 to accommodate Cape Wind.

There is nothing "laughable" about the biological significance of avian mortalities by wind turbines. As Donald Michael Fry, Ph.D., director of pesticides and birds program of the American Bird Conservancy testified to Chairwoman Bordello and members of the House Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and Oceans during the Oversight Hearing "Gone with the Wind: Impacts of Wind Turbines on Birds and Bats" on May 1, 2007: "While the actual number of birds killed by wind turbines is unknown, estimates have been made in the range of 30,000 to 60,000 per year at the current level of wind development."

From the very beginning of the federal review process, now in the neighborhood of six years, the only thing more stunning that the vitriolic personal comments about Kennedy and others or the similar comments made by anti Cape Wind agents against Cape Wind supporters has been the utter and seemingly not-to- be-overcome incompetence of two major federal agencies. First there was the Army of Engineers in our hall of shame and now the Minerals Management Service. In my opinion the outrage caused by their incompetence should be shared equally by both sides of this debate. Jim Gordon should be purple with rage that he has been forced to spend probably $10 million more than he should have because the USACE review was shoddy enough to allow Cape Wind opponents to argue successfully for review by another agency. Gordon's opposition should be boiling mad that the USACE review was so sloppily done that it could not be used to kill the Horseshoe Shoal siting. Now, we have an even more amateurish effort by the Minerals Management Service, which flagrantly violated federal law in several key regards.

These letters, and a host of others addressing the Cape Wind facility proposed for Nantucket Sound, were published in the Mar 6, 2008 edition of the Cape Cod Times. The Minerals Management Service, a division of the Department of Interior, has released the draft environmental impact statement of the proposed project. Other letters can be accessed by clicking on the link at the bottom of this page.

Buried deeply in the recently released federal report on Cape Wind is a whopping admission that Cape Wind's power would be two to three times current wholesale prices in the area. Perhaps in an attempt to make the outrageous cost of Cape Wind seem more reasonable, Canevari quotes current wholesale electricity prices ranging from $60 to $160 per megawatt hour (MWh). But according to ISO New England, the group that operates the electricity grid in New England, the average wholesale price was $66 per MWh over the last two years in southeastern Massachusetts. At the $122 per MWh projected in the federal report, the electricity produced by Cape Wind would be more than double the going rate.

For years, residents of Cape Cod and the Islands have been promised that the Cape Wind project would lower their electricity rates. Remember: "The Wind is Free?" Apparently this is no longer true since Cape Wind has stopped promising to save us money on electricity. ...The snapshot of savings was based on the practice of selling electricity into the wholesale spot market. Cape Wind used a study that projects the cost of fossil fuels versus allegedly free wind. This study was biased because it looked at only benefits and not the relevant costs. Furthermore, it became obsolete just months after it was done. Yet, Cape Wind still uses the spot market model and La Capra Study as justification for its long-held claim of lowering our electric bills.

The long-awaited Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) on the Cape Wind application to place 130 wind turbines in the waters of Nantucket Sound is finally out. ...Although the MMS DEIS seems to clear the way for Cape Wind to build its Nantucket Sound wind farm, CapeCodToday.com will be printing remarks made by experts in the wind-energy/finance fields that identify many serious flaws in the DEIS and in the methods and information used to paint a healthy picture of the Cape Wind project. MMS's own peer review raises serious questions about how MMS arrived at the conclusions their report contains.

The federal draft report on Cape Wind tries to evaluate the impacts of this massive project. Most issues are classified as minor, ignoring local sentiment. ...The transfer of over $1 billion from taxpayers' hard-earned money to the developer is also a major issue for taxpayers. Let's look at the impacts of this industrial scale project through the eyes of the affected and not the eyes of strangers living far from the Cape and isolated from its impacts. Locals need to speak up now before it's too late.

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. ...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.

The incompetence of the U.S. Minerals Management Service, which issued on Monday a favorable preliminary review of the controversial wind factory on Nantucket Sound, is breathtaking. As predicted, the federal agency has failed to seriously consider realistic alternatives. ...In fact, the agency claims it analyzed seven alternatives in detail, but three of them — a smaller configuration, phased development, a condensed array of the turbines — all involve the proposed site at Horseshoe Shoal. Another "alternative" involves the proposed site. How is that an alternative to the developer's proposal? A fifth alternative is no wind farm at all. That means MMS took nearly two years to seriously consider just two alternative sites — Monomoy Shoals and south of Tuckernuck Island. And those reviews were poorly done.

I believe, however, the primary consideration of an optimal location for the generation of electricity has been neglected in this project. In the feasibility study conducted for the town it was noted at the Little Bay location "wind speed is at low end of commercial projects." There are much stronger winds in Fairhaven outside of Little Bay that would produce much more energy. Placing these turbines at the back of Little Bay is like building a solar array in the shade of trees. Sure, you will get electricity, but why settle for less?

I was APPALLED to recently read in The Hartford Courant an exposé of the wind farms planned for the Berkshires, including one in Savoy. To quote the Green Berkshires Web site: "Wind turbines produce very little energy but a lot of tax breaks, grants, subsidies and price supports for the developers, at tremendous expense to taxpayers and electricity ratepayers." Add to that the destruction of the environment involved (20 acres cleared for each turbine, for starters) and it is clear these projects are ill-advised. ...I will clearly NOT be retiring to Savoy. My property will remain undeveloped and continue to net the town a whopping $112 per year in taxes. And I will find someplace else to spend my generous state of Connecticut pension. I find it unlikely that this will be the only revenue loss the region sustains as a result of these projects.

Cape Wind officials have spent the better part of six years framing themselves as the good guys - the green saviors of Cape Cod and the Islands. They want you to believe their proposal to build 130 wind turbines in Nantucket Sound is a battle between those who want to save the Earth and those who made fortunes despoiling it. ... Last week, Cape Wind appealed the Cape Cod Commission's denial of the developer's plan to run electrical transmission lines from Yarmouth to its proposed industrial site. ...The effort to bypass the Cape Cod Commission - and all home-rule scrutiny - demonstrates the company's arrogant attitude toward local regulators and reveals they are not as interested in the public process as they would have you believe.

There may be places for wind turbines in the New England hills, but so far developers have been going at the thing willy-nilly, with very little careful study involved. And the effect on the fossil-fuel industry, even with thousands of turbines erected, would be next to nothing. Don't these people have any bridges they want to sell us? Those we could use.

Cape Wind's characterization of Nantucket Sound as a lost environmental cause is a desperate move. But the "dumping grounds" saga is not so dreary a tale as Cape Wind, and their cheerleader group Clean Power Now, would like it to be.