Let Vineyarders Decide Blog

Wind farm critics challenge state law

2009-12-08T19:07:00.000-05:00

Wind farm critics challenge state law

By Nick Sambides Jr.
BDN Staff

LINCOLN, Maine — A state law fast-tracking wind-to-energy projects is unconstitutional, and the state’s own peer reviewer admitted that state methods for reviewing project noise is flawed, an attorney opposing the $130 million Rollins Mountain wind farm argues in a brief submitted to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. READ MORE

Open Letter to Martha’s Vineyard Commission Commissioners

2009-12-01T14:57:00.002-05:00

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/

Health Concerns

2009-11-23T16:05:00.003-05:00

The recent controversy to place two massive wind farms right off our coast has raised a host of local rule and environmental questions. One area of concern that has not yet received sufficient attention in the press, both for water and land based wind turbines, relates to issues of health.

Recent evidence exists that subjecting humans to pulsating, low-frequency noise associated with wind turbines creates sleep disturbances leading to depression, chronic stress, migraines, nausea and dizziness, exhaustion and anger, memory loss and cognitive difficulties, cardiac arrhythmia, increased heart rate and blood pressure. For example, an article from 2008 cites "no fewer than 13 studies that show noise from wind turbines at night can disturb residents more than 2 Km away ( "Simple guidelines for siting wind turbines to prevent health risks," George W. Kamperman and Richard R. JamesDearborn, NOISE-CON 2008, Michigan, July 28-31, 2008).

Also, "Those living close to the source of noise can develop what has been termed "Vibroacoustic Disease (VAD). Noise from wind turbines exhibit the characteristics of noise experienced in various occupations (aircrews, aircraft maintenance workers, ship workers and an islander population exposed to environmental infra and low frequency noise) and has been shown to lead to VAD. Complaints from people living near wind turbines are the same as those seizures from persons who have developed VAD." (Vibroacoustic disease: Biological effects of infrasound and low-frequency noise explained by mechanotransduction cellular signaling." Mariana Alves-Pereira and Nuno A.A. Castelo Branco, Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology, (2007) 93: 256-279).

Any state government, town or private citizen that permits or installs a wind turbine(s) really may be causing more harm than good, and, of course, subjecting themselves to potential liabilities down the road, if and, when our populace begins to exhibit medical issues!

Given that the Oceans Plan has not studied in detail any of the impacts on our ecosystems, tourist economy or the culture of the Wampanoag's, we seriously doubt if the our leaders in Boston have ruled out any of the potential health hazards described above. We as concerned citizens really have to ask why? Why the rush to judgment when our vistas, our birds, our fish, our way of life and now, most importantly, our health is at stake?

Renewable Energy Areas, Including Adjacent Federal Waters

2009-11-22T18:28:00.008-05:00

On this map provided by the State, you can see that the entire west and southern shore 3 miles off the coast of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket (grayed area - federal waters) are being considered as potential sites for industrial wind park development. This is happening quickly, and citizens will not have a chance to approve whatever plan the State decides upon. Please get involved and tell your friends to get involved.

http://commpres.env.state.ma.us/mop/draft_plan/v1/figs/full/4-3-full.pdf

Last Day to Have Your Say!

2009-11-22T15:18:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow, November 23 @ 5:00 pm, the period for public comments on the Draft Ocean Management Plan. Please let your voice be heard. Don't let the State say nobody cared enough to give their input. CLICK HERE to give your input now.

This is what constructing an off shore wind park looks like

2009-11-20T16:56:00.001-05:00

This is a promo video from the construction of the off shore windpark "Princes Amalia" (Q7), off the cost of The Netherlands close to the town of IJmuiden. The one proposed for off of Aquinnah would be more than 2Xs as large.

Ex-partner of Boston wind exec charged

2009-11-19T17:13:00.001-05:00

Ex-partner of Boston wind exec charged
Italians nab soccer club president in energy fraud Read the article here.

Let Vineyarders Decide needs your help!

2009-11-14T15:07:00.000-05:00

Dear Friends & Neighbors,

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!

Which Way Will Wind Power Blow? - Letters to the Editor of NY Times, Nov 9, 2009

2009-11-09T11:34:00.000-05:00

Which Way Will Wind Power Blow?
Mark Todd

To the Editor:
Re “Cape Wind” (editorial, Nov. 2):
As a lifelong resident of Falmouth on Cape Cod, I fully support the Wampanoag Indians’ effort to block a wind power project and preserve an uncluttered view of the rising sun on Nantucket Sound. They are the people of the rising sun; it is their tribal identity.
Cape Cod is embracing ground-based wind technology wholeheartedly. There are wind turbines going up in Falmouth and elsewhere. Longtime Cape residents remember a large failed wind farm in Nantucket. The answer is always the same: wind turbines are not economically feasible for very long in a marine environment. Ask anyone in the Navy about maintaining equipment on ships.
Our poor Coast Guard men and women will spend the next 100 years putting warning buoys around a failed Cape Wind project if it goes forward, and the Wampanoags and everyone who loves Cape Cod will be confronted with a derelict eyesore.

Kristen HeislerWest Falmouth, Mass., Nov. 3, 2009
•
To the Editor:
Your editorial urges America to “do its part to address climate change,” as if more towers were the only choice. If everyone on the Cape replaced incandescent bulbs with fluorescents and if federal stimulus included solar-energy incentives, there would be no need to devastate a pristine setting with the structural trappings of the planet’s most destructive species.
If you’re going to urge construction in other people’s front yards, you might first consider replacing Lady Liberty’s torch with a turbine.

Mike Garvan Brewster, Mass., Nov. 2, 2009
•
To the Editor:
I disagree with your statement that the Wampanoag tribes’ “claim” about the cultural significance of Nantucket Sound “seems unsupportable.” As a co-author of the federal guidelines about what constitutes a “traditional cultural property” eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, I think the tribes’ argument would be easily supportable. The significance of a traditional cultural property exists in the minds of those who value it.
Besides, recognizing Nantucket Sound as eligible for the national register would not necessarily block Cape Wind. There is nothing in the National Historic Preservation Act that prohibits an agency from deciding that the public interest demands that a historic place, or someone’s view of a historic place, be sacrificed in the public interest.
The tribes probably have a stronger case under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which prohibits federal agencies from substantially burdening a person’s practice of religion unless they find a compelling government interest.
The preservation act’s review process does provide a means of resolving disputes without going to court. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar should use this process creatively to resolve the Cape Wind controversy.

Thomas F. King Silver Spring, Md., Nov. 2, 2009
The writer is a consultant on historic preservation issues.
•
To the Editor:
The only thing that should remain anchored in Nantucket Sound — as in Yellowstone National Park, the Grand Canyon or any other treasured stretch of land or ocean on this planet — is humanity’s precious spirituality, which is among our greatest gifts from the gods.
May we be visionary enough to site our imposing mechanical towers where they would cause far less spiritual demolition.

Tony BalisTisbury, Mass., Nov. 2, 2009
The writer is president of the Humanity Initiative.
•
To the Editor:
You are right. We should greatly increase our use of wind power. But the Cape Wind proposal is the wrong scheme in the wrong place.
Having 130 440-foot-high towers would be grotesquely out of scale for the site. The project would only increase opposition to wind power nationwide.
Instead, let’s build many smaller, more sensitively designed wind projects in less scenic locations.

Mac GordonLakeville, Conn., Nov. 3, 2009

LVD e-mail

2009-10-19T16:16:00.000-04:00

if you think this e-mail should be seen by more people, please send it on. a grass roots organization needs the fullest participation.

let vinyarders decide (a grass roots organization formed to improve the state’s Oceans Act and draft Oceans Plan)

how surprised and even shocked were you to realize the state planned to have only one commercial wind farm for the whole state and planned to place it off nomans land and cuttyhunk?

how did you then feel when you discovered that it was planned for 166 wind turbines each 50 stories high with enough lights to be visible to navigation at night (visible for over 30 miles) and able to generate enough electricity for 200,000 homes?

did it bother you that nantucket was bypassed for this city of wind turbines because state people thought they had birds that needed to be protected and the federal bird sanctuary of nomans land with the same birds didn’t need such protection?

how do you feel about the fact that our martha’s vineyard commission wouldn’t have final authority over applications to build in vineyard waters, but such decisions would be made by a politically-appointed state siting board?

did you know that any comments on the state plan must be submitted by november 23rd of this year and that the state intends to finalize this deeply-flawed plan by the end of 2009?

does it bother you that this plan, so potentially destructive for the vineyard, was promulgated with virtually no input from those with specialized knowledge about the impact on the vineyard?
federal law requires any proposed federal action that affects the wampanoag be discussed with them. there has been no consultation by the state planners with the wampanoag. are you satisfied with that?

never has a plan with more destructive potential for a small fragile area been promulgated with less input from those most directly affected.

maybe you thought it didn’t affect you. maybe you thought there was nothing you could do about it. well it does and there is.

in a rare show of unanimity, our all island selectmen have determined to go to see governor patrick to express their concern.

come and learn more and join others who are concerned as we discuss what to do and how to do it.

PLEASE ATTEND AN OPEN COMMUNITY MEETING TO BE HELD TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20TH AT 7:00 PM AT THE CHILMARK COMMUNITY CENTER AND HEAR FROM OUR ELECTED LEADERSHIP, THE MARTHA'S VINEYARD COMMISSION, LOCAL BIRD EXPERTS, PERSONS KNOWLEDGEABLE ABOUT LOCAL FISHERIES AND POSSIBLE ECONOMIC IMPACT. refreshments will be served.

andy goldman
chilmark
508 645-9840

Oct 15, 2009 The Martha's Vineyard Times Letters to the Editor

2009-10-19T16:09:00.000-04:00

The Martha's Vineyard Times
Letters to the Editor
Published: October 15, 2009

Strategy for wind

To the Editor:

After the recent hearing, and learning what others are doing and thinking regarding the state plan to locate at Nomans Land, already designated by the federal government as a bird sanctuary, and Cuttyhunk, up to 166 turbines over 450 feet high, generating enough electricity to power more than 200,000 homes, the following thoughts occur.

While I am concerned - even terrified - about global warming and strongly believe that alternative energy sources to fossil fuels must be generated, I want to be able to support and be guided by scientific and economic based strategies, to evaluate the relative viability of renewable alternatives, including wind.

Maybe I was asleep at the switch, but it seems to me that the state plan to site these large commercial wind farms solely in our front yard appeared out of nowhere like a summer storm. Oh yes, I was aware of the Cape Wind project, but not the latest state plan.

I first want to applaud the governor and his staff for placing this critically important issue front and center. Notwithstanding, it seems to me that in many ways both the Oceans Act and the proposed sitings require improvement.

In the case of the act, it needs to be amended to assure that criteria of concern to us are included, including vistas and economic impact, and, of vital concern, that the Martha's Vineyard Commission must have final approval, with appeals from its determinations going to the courts, not to a politically appointed siting board.

In the case of the proposed plan, in order to inspire confidence, there must be meaningful consultation with the Wampanoag tribe, and local Vineyard concerns, including Vineyard bird experts, local fishing interests, as well as analyses of the project's environmental and economic impacts. No plan that exempts Nantucket as a possible site because of its birds and then targets the federal wildlife preserve of Nomans Land for such a purpose can be credible. The latest delay in the Cape Wind project for failure to consult with the Wampanoag tribe shows the importance of not missing this vital step.

Our neighboring states, Maine and Rhode Island, have gone about these issues differently. Maine has set up a legislative energy task force to study and report back, and Rhode Island is conducting a two-year study with the Oceanography Department of the University of Rhode Island to identify the best locations. We, on the other hand, have gone directly to the creation of comprehensive ocean management legislation. Perhaps our plan would have more buy-in had it been preceded by comprehensive study similar to Maine and Rhode Island before going directly to this legislation.

What to do about it? Let Vineyarders decide.

It is critical to require turbines to be located where most propitious, following consultation with the Wampanoag and following a process that inspires confidence because of its inclusionary and broad-gauged criteria that not only optimizes the utility of the wind farm, but minimizes the collateral damage to the environment, fish, birds, vistas, adverse economic impact, etc.

It is also critical to require any state plan that affects the Vineyard to obtain approval of the Martha's Vineyard Commission and that any appeals go to the courts.

In order to achieve these objectives, it will be necessary to organize and act in concert - something Vineyarders don't always do well - but is vital here.

While many groups and individuals have already spoken out, I have felt the need for the existence of overarching entity to make sure that all relevant expertise necessary for Vineyarders to participate meaningfully at the table is available.

All concerned who agree with the thrust of this appeal are cordially invited to attend a meeting to be held at the Chilmark Community Center, at 7 pm, Tuesday, October 20.

At that time, a proper organization can be created; goals, strategies and tactics can be discussed and, with sufficient support, implemented.

Andy Goldman
Chilmark

Open Meeting – Tuesday, October 20th @ 7:00 pm at the Chilmark Community Center

2009-10-15T11:58:00.000-04:00