But, it turns out, Kennedy's antipathy to furtive rules changes and backroom power plays stops at the water's edge -- specifically, the waters of Nantucket Sound, which separates Cape Cod (where the Kennedy family has an oceanfront compound in Hyannis Port) from the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard.

The Kennedy neighbors on Cape Cod have traditionally opposed the Kennedys politically, but they are all in bed together in opposing Cape Wind.

More than 30 years ago, Massachusetts designated Nantucket Sound as a state ocean sanctuary, and both state and federal agencies have proposed national maritime sanctuary protection.

Do you still think this is only objected to by wealthy mansion owners? The number of everyday working people, retirees, fishermen, vacationers, boaters and "just plain folks" who will be affected by this project is enormous, and the effects will be felt for years.

Maybe resistance to constructing the nation's first offshore wind facility on Horseshoe Shoal is about more than the property values of folks lucky enough to own homes on Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, or Cape Cod. Maybe it is also about whether a private, for-profit developer ought to be handed 24 square miles of publicly owned federal land without having to submit to a competitive bidding process. Maybe it is about whether Congress ought to devise clear rules for development of the ocean floor before, not after, entrepreneurs start erecting fields of wind turbines offshore.

While Cape Wind has targeted politics and well-funded opponents as the culprits, the real issue -- and villain -- is the utter recklessness of building a massive industrial-scale project across 24 square miles of Nantucket Sound.

Petersen and his friends in the environmental lobby say they'd prefer to have the satisfaction of knowing Massachusetts is doing its part to reduce global pollution. But the fact is that this state has already gone beyond what most others are willing to do to reduce power plant emissions short of turning itself into an economic backwater in which electricity is a precious commodity and the lights are on only half the time.

The machines will totally dominate the landscape for four or five miles around, will be visible up to twenty miles away and will seriously affect the ambience and spirituality of St. Peter’s on the Wall which is the oldest church of its type in the world

While Mass Audubon's primary expertise is bird life, we also believe that other potential impacts are important and should be examined.

...as the reality of the largest proposed offshore wind plant in the world comes into sharper focus, it becomes clear that 130 massive wind machines spread across 24 square miles of the sound threaten not only marine life and wildlife but also public safety.

One can certainly concur with concerns about how our culture's fossil fuel combustion practices help accelerate the process of global warming—without uncritically agreeing that the intrusive nature of windpower technology is even a partial solution to the problem.
Editor's Note: Ted Williams' 'Wind Advisory' is available via the link below.

Because of the pressures on the countryside in the North East, DCPRE, perhaps more than its parent organisation, has considered the effects of wind farms both in terms of their impact on the landscape, including the people who live and seek recreation there and on their effectiveness on the climate, particularly how they affect emissions of greenhouse gases. DCPRE considers that the impact of structures such as wind turbines on the countryside is potentially very severe and is most concerned about the potential cumulative effect of them.

Editor's Note: Submitted as a 'Consultation' to the Department of Trade and Industry

Your [Boston Globe] front page headline of March 29, "Audubon review supports wind farm" was a rush to judgment according to Vernon Lang, supervisor of Fish and Wildlife’s New England field office, the agency lead official on the Cape Wind proposal.
Editor's Note: This letter has been submitted to the Boston Globe.

It is not necessary to sacrifice the privilege of Massachusetts' magnificent coastline which sustains us. In allowing the destruction of an ecological sanctuary like Nantucket Sound we will fail in our commitment to uphold the public trust placed in us to protect our coastline for future generations.

Ipswich should be focusing on how to get the average kwh cost down to 10 cents or less, not wasting time on some politically correct marginal trifle that will do nothing to achieve electric rate relief.

If the good people of Florida would question the developers, the politicians who fast-track this project, the facts, and the integrity of the siting process with this type of intensity instead of attacking anyone who participates in the public process, this project would never be built.

And we would still need the same amount of generating power from other plants (which would be run less efficiently, i.e., with more emissions) to keep the system running when the wind isn't perfect. With this pathetic outlook, and considering as well the fact that electricity is only a fraction of our energy use, wind looks about as far from a "serious" solution to global warming or decommissioning nuclear plants as one could get.

Depending upon how many of these towers are erected, this could look like an appendix scar on the side of the mountain.

Massachusetts has an ambitious goal for renewable-energy development but no realistic plan or guidelines to reach it. The result is a free-for-all with the state lavishing money on wind-power development in the Berkshires, investors and other states benefiting from the largess, and Berkshire towns and residents left in the dark as to the real consequences for our community, our economy, and our beautiful mountains.
Editor's Note: Eleanor Tillinghast is head of Green Berkshires, Inc., an environmental group based in western Massachusetts.

Why Illuzzi thinks that wind energy will "avoid cutting wide swaths through our...countryside..." is beyond me. The footprint for wind is huge.