LETTER FROM
THE EDITOR
HUFFINGTON
03.10.13
Headwinds
n this week’s issue,
Tom Zeller Jr. looks
at one man’s journey to build a wind
farm off the shores of Cape Cod.
Twelve years after Jim Gordon, a
New England developer of natural gas plants, launched his effort to build the country’s first
offshore wind project — known
as Cape Wind — the effort is
mired in a bureaucratic tangle of
permits, sign-offs and lawsuits.
None of the 130 envisioned wind
turbines — which would send
power to shore via undersea cables — have been built. As Zeller
writes, “More than a dozen lawsuits, citing everything from potential disruption of whale and
bird migrations to interference
ART STREIBER
I
with airplane and shipping traffic, the wrecking of commercial
fishing grounds and the desecration of sacred Native American
sites, have thrown sand in the
project’s gears at every turn.”
Through Gordon, Zeller puts
flesh and blood on two of the
most pressing crises facing our
country: climate change and infrastructure. And while the momentum is slowly gaining — see
President Obama’s State of the
Union address, where he spoke
of action on climate change “for
the sake of our children and
our future,” and promised to
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