The Trump administration will expand wind energy leases off Martha’s Vineyard, the U.S. Secretary of the Interior announced Friday.
The Trump administration will expand wind energy leases off Martha’s Vineyard, the U.S. Secretary of the Interior announced Friday.
One of the largest land-based wind energy developers in the country has acquired a major stake in a wind farm being developed south of the Vineyard.
As the federal government presses ahead with plans to develop wind farms on a 1,300-square-mile plot of ocean south of the Vineyard, on Monday night the Island had its turn to have a say about it.
Representatives from the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, accompanied by members of the Gov. Deval Patrick administration and Cape and Islands Rep. Timothy Madden, came to the Katharine Cornell Theatre in Vineyard Haven Monday to solicit public comment as part of a call for information announced on Feb. 6.
The stage is now set for the development of a massive swath of ocean south of the Vineyard, as the federal government pushes forward with plans to open a 1,300-square-mile plot to wind farm developers beginning 14 miles offshore.
At a press conference staged in Charlestown Friday, federal officials announced they were moving ahead with plans to open up a large area south of the Vineyard for offshore wind development.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said it would begin an environmental assessment for the 1,300-square-mile area that lies about 14 miles south of the Vineyard.
“There is great potential here,” bureau director Tommy P. Beaudreau told The Boston Globe. The press conference was held at the state’s wind technology testing center in Charlestown.
Just two weeks after it finished accepting proposals from wind power developments in waters south of the Vineyard, the federal government has more than halved the area in which it will allow wind farms.
Citing concerns from fishermen, the state and others about potential adverse impacts, particularly on fishing and migrating marine mammals, the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement has reduced the size of the prospective area from 3,000 square miles to 1,300.
