December 21, 2012
Letters, Rhode Island

Online petition against Deepwater

The Block Island Times | Dec. 21, 2012 | block-island.villagesoup.com

It was clear to me in preparing and participating in the Deepwater discussion at Tuesday’s Town Council meeting that:

a) for more than two and a half years, the Town of New Shoreham has been maneuvering Block Island towards the Deepwater wind farm and cable,

b) it has done so in a deliberate unobvious way,

c) it has provided little opportunity for discussion on the concept as a whole,

d) it has provided embarrassing little justification for its position,

e) it has never expended the resources to investigate and motivate far less costly and more effective energy supply strategies for the community, and

f) it may have sold out the community for a short-term gain of an easement payment.

In response to this, I feel that those opposed to the project be provided a coordinated voice, similar to the one the First Warden attempted to create supporting the project. To that end, I have created an online petition in opposition to this project.

The opposition is based upon: a) overstated environmental benefits to Block Island, b) overstated and unsubstantiated economic benefits to Block Island, c) potential long term economic harm to Block Island, d) failure to pursue far less risky and superior renewable energy generation and energy conservation opportunities, which would leave far more money in the local economy, and e) lack of confidence in Deepwater’s experience to successfully manage such a project.

The opposition in the petition is not based upon aesthetics, effect upon property values, or noise, as these in my opinion are too subjective for me to write about or prove. However, the petition does allow the signator to add comments such as these.

I will place a link to the petition on my News and Events section of entech-engineering.com by Dec. 26. The web address will be: http://www.ipetitions.com/widget/view/silver/540687. Who knows, I may even figure out how to get it on Facebook.

Christopher Warfel

Town Council, TNS

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2012/12/21/online-petition-against-deepwater/