State agency needs to apologize, make amends

Hard to imagine that the state agency we entrust with managing our shoreline is clueless about the fact that there are lots of recreational boaters off Salisbury Beach.

But that appears to be the case with the state’s Coastal Zone Management agency, which is taking another look at its plans to potentially allow wind farms immediately off Salisbury’s coast after receiving “new data” that indicates there’s boating and lobstering going on out there.

What an outrageous joke to anyone who has ever been to the beach and witnessed the fishermen and boaters who frequent those waters, never mind the summertime Sand and Sea festival, in which the central event is a personal watercraft race. Clearly, this plan was not done with an inkling of “research.”

It might be a humorous thing were it not for the fact that taxpayers are forking over millions of dollars to this agency to do its job. The joke’s on those of us who are paying the bills for this low-quality work.

Coastal Zone Management should indeed immediately withdraw its plans for allowing turbines 1,500 or more feet off Salisbury’s coast. And it should go one step further — it should make amends with Salisbury officials and pledge to work with them in the future.

Coastal Zone Management has long been an agency that town and city officials in this area have viewed with disdain. Whether it’s an institutional prejudice against local officials or a general arrogance, the agency seems to think that it holds no accountability to locals. This latest example is a good illustration.

Plum Islanders may recall their run-in with Coastal Zone Management a few years ago, when the agency insisted that a map created by the water and sewer project’s engineering firm be used to delineate the flood hazard zones subject to the most strict building controls. The firm was horrified, noting that the map wasn’t drawn for such use, yet the agency ignored their pleas. Local officials and state Reps. Harriett L. Stanley and Mike Costello blasted the agency for misusing the map and urged it to use the federal flood maps that are the standard for such uses. Finally, after much public pressure, the agency relented.

The most troubling aspect of the Salisbury Beach situation is that the Coastal Zone Management agency didn’t have the courtesy to let Salisbury town officials know what they were proposing. News broke last week, just days before the comment period on the plan was set to close. It wasn’t the agency that made the announcement; rather it was Salisbury Selectman Jerry Klima, who learned of it from a colleague in Newburyport. Klima passed the information on to The Daily News.

Salisbury Town Manager Neil Harrington was justifiably angry, after fielding dozens of phone calls from worried townspeople. He was unable to give them an answer because no one from the state bothered to give him even the courtesy of call.

“It’s an embarrassment for the town to have a state agency behave in this manner. It’s rare and striking, actually, that a state agency would act this way,” Harrington told The Daily News.

That’s an unusually strong condemnation from Harrington, a cool-headed leader who has won great respect in this area for professionally managing the town. He certainly deserved better treatment than that. And so do the people who pay the bills for this agency.

The Daily News

www.newburyportnews.com

24 November 2009

Tags: Wind power, Wind energy

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