Another Flap Over Cape Wind; Coast Guard Remains Neutral

By ALEXIS TONTI

In the latest war of words over a proposed wind farm for Nantucket
Sound, a newspaper article has quoted a Coast Guard official calling the
Cape Wind project a "manageable" risk - but the Coast
Guard says the emphasis in the article is wrong.

Coast Guard officials reiterate that they have taken no official
position on the project, and are only beginning to review its potential
impacts.

The article ran on the front page of the Cape Cod Times Friday,
accompanied by a bold headline: "Coast Guard report calls the
Nantucket Sound wind farm an ‘acceptable risk.'"

The article said the Coast Guard presented a 31-page report with its
findings to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the regulatory agency
overseeing the project.

But the Coast Guard in fact has submitted no reports of its own to
the Army Corps. Although they require a navigational risk assessment as
part of the larger permitting process, they have only reviewed the
assessment - conducted by a consultant hired by Cape Wind -
and offered concerns and suggestions for further study.

"We do not approve or disapprove," said CPO Phyllis
Gamache-Jensen, a spokesman for the Coast Guard. "We are in the
infant stages of a review process that seeks input from everybody:
state, local and federal agencies and the public. We are looking at a
small piece of this project."

The Army Corps permit manager for the wind farm yesterday compared
the assessment to the determination by the Federal Aviation
Administration that the project poses no hazard for aviation: "All
things feed into the environmental impact statement, and we are not sure
yet what alternatives [for analysis] will need to be looked at,"
said Karen Adams, the permit manager.

She added that the reporting on the assessment ("obtained . .
. by the Cape Cod Times") took people by surprise. "It was
not something we were planning on publishing separately, but the
applicant was able to go ahead and pull it together in advance."

The Army Corps is preparing a draft environmental impact statement
(DEIS) that fully evaluates the benefits and detriments posed by the
130-turbine wind farm. In all, 17 state and federal agencies will review
the wind farm's potential impacts and contribute their analyses to
the DEIS.

The study referenced in the Times was prepared by the ESS Group Inc.
of Wellesley. It assesses how the wind farm would affect navigational
safety, search and rescue operations and communications in Nantucket
Sound.

It also looks at the environment in the sound, types of boating
activity in the area and their typical operating routes.

In a cover letter that accompanied the release of the report, Army
Corps spokesman Larry Rosenberg wrote: "It is expected that this
will become a part of the DEIS. However, it is premature for us to make
any determination as to whether this is complete or if any additional
navigation impact assessment will be required for the DEIS."

A flurry of press releases came soon after the article hit the
newsstands. The Coast Guard sent one out emphasizing that the assessment
is a baseline for continued study.

Opponents of the wind farm, for whom the risk to boaters is a
central argument, were also quick to seek clarification from Coast Guard
officials. Ernie Corrigan, spokesman for the Alliance to Protect
Nantucket Sound, yesterday called the confusion a casualty of daily
journalism.

"People are looking for closure on this project; they're
looking to tally the score and declare the game over," Mr.
Corrigan said. "But we are still months away from the Army Corps
issuing a DEIS, and until then the best thing to do is look at this
thing coldly, without getting drawn into the emotion of it."

Cape Wind spokesman Mark Rodgers also noted that the Coast
Guard's comments were a preliminary finding, but was pleased at
the suggestion that the wind farm can coexist with other uses of
Nantucket Sound.

"We were gratified from the analysis the Coast Guard has done
so far," Mr. Rodgers said. "There have been a lot of horror
stories and fear mongering about the project, and it is important to get
disinterested third party regulators to validate or invalidate those
concerns."