filed: August 25, 2010 • Letters, Massachusetts

Group’s environmental wind change

Credit: The Washington Times, www.washingtontimes.com 23 August 2010 ~~

Up to 6,600 avian mortalities will take place every year at the Nantucket offshore wind farm Cape Wind, according to the Massachusetts Audubon Society’s staff scientists.* Yet Mass Audubon still offers its support for Cape Wind – with a condition (“The Gulf’s bird toll,” Comment & Analysis, Wednesday).

Mass Audubon will implement a service, to be funded by Cape Wind, beginning at construction. The service, Adaptive Management (AM) monitoring and mitigation, is handled by a contract valued at approximately $8 million for monitoring, counting bird carcasses caused by Cape Wind and attempting to reduce harm to wildlife. It would seem Mass Audubon as a permit-reviewing entity is biased in favor of Cape Wind. It also has a conflict of financial interest in the outcome of the Cape Wind permitting process.

The lucre of the wind industry has so perverted environmental organizations that they are promoting violations of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Mass Audubon is advocating for up to 6,600 annual violations of this law.

BARBARA DURKIN

Northboro, Mass.

*“Based on available information included in the DEIS, our scientists calculated alternative estimates of collision mortality ranging conservatively from 2,300 to 6,600 bird mortalities per year.” —Mass Audubon comments on Cape Wind DEIS/DEIR/DRI, February 23, 2005 (click here to download)

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