SINKING IN
BUREAUCRACY
just as they are — by other commercial and recreational interests.
“The developer basically went
and said, ‘Okay, from a technical
basis, where’s a really good spot to
build?’” Parker said. “’Well, this
is a good spot because it’s close to
shore, so my transmission cables
won’t be so long, right? It’s protected, so it’s easier to maintain
and operate — my extreme storm
wave heights are low, because it’s
almost like a harbor — and the
wind speed’s really high. So technically, it’s a great place for me —
a profit-maximizing location.’
“On the other hand, those very
same things make it really conflicted, because you’ve got a very
lucrative fishing industry right
here,” she continued. “You’ve got a
lot of traffic because it’s a seasonal
community. You’ve got a lot of recreational boating going on here,
you’ve got ferry lines going here,
you’ve got air traffic — you just
have a huge amount of conflict. And
at the same time, it’s a very fragile habitat. You’ve got endangered
species like right whales coming in
here, you’ve got endangered birds
like piping plovers and roseate
terns. So it’s sort of the same thing
that made it very attractive to the
developer makes it very conflicted
HUFFINGTON
03.10.13
for the public, which is why there
has been such a fight.”
More recently, Parker and other
opponents have raised objections
to the power-purchase deals brokered by Cape Wind’s developers
with regional electricity transmission companies. These include
contracts with National Grid
and NStar to buy three-quarters
of Cape Wind’s output (50 percent to the former and 27.5 percent to the latter) over the first
15 years of the farm’s operation.
The cost of that power — significantly higher than the spot-price
for electricity generated by more
polluting sources — will pose a
significant hit to ratepayers that
simply isn’t worth it, Parker says.
And while supporters of the
project chastise opponents for
standing in the way of renewable
power development for purely
selfish ends, Parker argues that
the open vistas of Nantucket
Sound are as worthy of preservation as other national landmarks.
If we would blanch at placing a
large-scale industrial facility in
the heart of the Grand Canyon,
such reasoning goes, why would
we entertain doing it smack in
the middle of an arguably historic
body of water bounded by tranquil seaside towns?
“In the West they have these
huge areas of land. They’ve got