Open Letter to Martha’s Vineyard Commission Commissioners

Open letter to Martha’s Vineyard Commission Commissioners:

We (Let Vineyarders Decide) are so pleased that the jurisdiction of the Martha’s Vineyard Commission has been recognized relative to the waters off Nomans Land.

We are also pleased by the efforts of our local representatives to persuade Secretary Bowles of the infirmities of the draft Oceans Act Plan plan that placed a wind factory adjacent to the National Wildlife area of Nomans Land.

We are grateful that the Vineyard has been spared the cascading array of problems such a wind factory off Nomans would produce regarding our economy, ecology and spirituality.

But, shockingly, the Vineyard remains in peril. And why is that?

Because the State still plans to include the waters off Cuttyhunk in the Town of Gosnold, County of Dukes County as the sole remaining site for 100% of its commercial wind development.

Were that to happen all ills previously discussed including vistas, harm to migrating birds, adverse effects on fish and fisheries, navigation problems, adverse impact on our economy and cultural and spiritual degradation would occur.

It is to avoid exactly such foreseeable consequences of poor development decisions that the Martha’s Vineyard Commission was created.

But in this case there has been a disquieting silence by the MVC Commissioners to assert jurisdiction and begin the process of leading us into a proper resolution of these matters.

Now is not the time to talk of mitigation of damages, now is the time to seek to avoid harm that would require mitigation.

To those who say it should be left to the 86 people who live in Gosnold to determine whether the MVC has a role to play, we 600 plus members of Let Vineyarders Decide (“LVD”), and, we’re sure, the vast majority of Vineyarders say that while the 86 people of Gosnold should participate meaningfully in all considerations and have the full support and assistance of the MVC, they can not and should not unilaterally make a decision of such magnitude for the Vineyard.

We read the Statute creating the MVC as having conferred jurisdiction on it of the waters of Gosnold.

We beseech you to exert your usual sound leadership to protect the Vineyard from irreparable harm it is uniquely in your power to prevent, while at the same time working closely with our neighbors in Cuttyhunk and elsewhere in Gosnold.

Please, Martha’s Vineyard Commissioners, vigorously lead us out of this peril.

Respectfully,

Andy Goldman
Director, Let Vineyarders Decide
http://letvineyardersdecide.org/