Island support for wind farm is hardly unanimous
RE “ON Cuttyhunk Island, it’s yes in my backyard’’ (Page A1, Dec. 11): I want to correct the impression given by your article that folks on Cuttyhunk unanimously support a possible industrial wind farm next to the island. Numerous year-round and summer residents have expressed serious concerns about such a project. As you mentioned in the article, Cuttyhunk’s selectmen gave cautious, tentative approval of the state zoning plan that calls for the wind farm. In their letter to the state, the selectmen cited a long list of concerns, including how such a massive project might affect Cuttyhunk’s famous striped bass fishing and what it would be like to experience our sunsets through the flickering of 66 turbines.
As an island homeowner, I very much want to find a way to reduce our high cost of electricity, but I don’t want to do so by putting all that I hold dear about Cuttyhunk at risk. There is a simple win-win solution: Build a massive wind farm several miles south of Nomans Land in federal waters. Such a project would have less impact on Cuttyhunk and Martha’s Vineyard, and Cuttyhunk could still collect royalties that could be used to reduce our energy costs.
Let’s save the planet without ruining it in the process.
David Thurston
Somerville
The Boston Globe
17 December 2009
Tags: Wind power, Wind energy
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