DEP approves key permit for wind farm
State environmental officials have quietly issued a key permit for the wind farm proposed for Nantucket Sound.
The state Department of Environmental Protection last month issued a water quality certificate for Cape Wind Associates’ plan to install almost eight miles of transmission cables through Lewis Bay in West Yarmouth to 130 wind turbines in the sound.
An additional five miles of cable in federal waters would connect the wind farm to the electric grid if it is constructed.
“It does meet our approval as long as they follow our regulations,” DEP spokesman Ed Colletta said this week.
The water quality certificate issued on Aug. 15 is one of almost 20 permits Cape Wind must secure before the turbines are built.
A final federal assessment of the project’s environmental impact is expected by the end of the year.
In its Aug. 15 letter to Cape Wind, the DEP stated that it had “determined there is reasonable assurance the project will be conducted in a manner which will not violate applicable water quality standards … and other applicable requirements of state law.”
The agency included a number of conditions on the work, however, including surveys of eel grass in the area prior to construction, measures to protect the eel grass from silt from the jet plow that will be used to install the cables and post-construction monitoring of the eel grass.
The project must be completed within five years or Cape Wind must explain the reason for the delay, according to the letter. An Oil Spill Response Plan is also required before the cables are installed and jet plowing is only permitted from June 1 to Jan. 14, according to the certificate.
Read the full story in tomorrow’s Cape Cod Times
By Patrick Cassidy
Staff Writer
10 September 2008
Tags: Wind power, Wind energy
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