By now you've most likely heard about the DRAFT Massachusetts Ocean Management Plan which outlines a plan to give the State unprecedented power to manage commercial and industrial development in our State's waters. Only a few months ago, the island community learned that this plan included locating large scale energy development off Aquinnah shores - 166 turbines (visible day and night for 30 miles), 450 feet high (fifty story building) powering 200,000 homes on the mainland (a city just slightly smaller than Boston). This would be the largest off shore wind farm in the country.
Let Vineyarders Decide (LVD) is a grassroots organization of 500+ Vineyarders and growing, formed to assure that the Martha's Vineyard Commission and the island community as a whole continue to be empowered to make final decisions regarding scale, siting, and development of projects that have the potential to greatly impact the Vineyard and all of us who live, work, and visit here.
LVD is a proponent of wind power with a desire to support a State plan promoting it. However, we are galvanized into opposition to the State's Draft Plan because:
- The current version of the plan removes authority of the Martha's Vineyard Commission by directing appeals from the Commission to a politically-appointed state siting board rather than to a court. While Secretary Ian Bowles indicated recently in a meeting with Vineyard selectmen that he might bend on this issue, it is up to us to keep the pressure on and hold him to his word. And while the Martha's Vineyard Commission might retain jurisdiction over the development proposed off the shores of Nomans, it does not have the same jurisdiction over the other proposed location off Cuttyhunk, which Bowles has not taken off the table as a site for this development.
- The State has failed to consult with the Wampanoag tribe of Gay Head/Aquinnah, and has failed to adequately reach out to educate, inform, and involve the island's population as a whole in the creation of the current draft of the plan.
- The State has set an unrealistic and unnecessarily rushed timetable for a project of this scope and scale
- The State has failed to consider the impact on nationally recognized vistas and economic loss, failed to collect and evaluate information pertaining to the ecology of the Vineyard and its waters, assess the impact on birds, fish and fisheries, and failed to consider the negative impact on navigation.
- State planners have told us that the long-term future of wind power is further offshore in Federal waters, not in State waters. The commercial wind farm planned for by the Draft State Oceans Plan is a short term expediency in which only the Vineyard loses with no concomitant gain.
The All-island Selectmen have been unanimous in their desire to maintain the Martha's Vineyard Commission as the final reviewer of development affecting the Vineyard and to amend the Draft Oceans Plan. The Selectmen have determined to visit the Governor to make their views known. Until recently the State has been giving the island a cold shoulder on this issue, but because the Vineyard is speaking out, we are starting to be heard.
Time is of the essence!
Unless the State postpones or disregards the deadline, its flawed draft Oceans Plan will become final on December 31, 2009.
To prevent that from happening, and to give islanders more of a voice in this matter, LVD has taken immediate action. LVD is engaging in a major grassroots organizing and outreach effort to raise awareness in a short period of time about this issue and inform citizens of new developments with this plan, and let people know of opportunities to voice their opinions to the state. LVD has also engaged the services of advisers, lobbyists, a publicist and attorneys and has retained a webmaster to maximize the potential of the internet to raise awareness and solicit support for this cause.
LVD needs your financial support now so that the Vineyard may itself determine how to grow and adapt to the future and not have that future determined by a flawed, hastily conceived State plan. Your contributions will allow LVD to continue to be a resource to all on the Vineyard.
So far 12 families have contributed $43,550.
Please send your check made payable to "Let Vineyarders Decide" to Andy Goldman, Director of LVD at PO Box 557, Chilmark, MA 02535.
PLEASE SUPPORT LVD! We need your help!
Please also show your support by signing the petition at http://letvineyardersdecide.org , joining us on facebook, and sending this to your mailing list. There is strength in numbers!
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