Massachusetts Tribes Challenge Offshore Wind Farm
An offshore wind farm. (image: meteorologynews.com)
The Associated Press reported Monday that the Wampanoag are attempting to block construction of the nation’s first offshore wind farm on religious grounds. The tribes, the Mashpee and Aquinnah Wampanoag, are also known as “The People of the First Light” and have religious observances built around viewing the sunrise—a view that would be blocked, or at least adulterated, by 130 400-foot tall wind turbines. The turbines, planned for Nantucket Sound, will stand offshore, but even offshore doesn’t appear far enough out to avoid “NIMBY”—the “not in my back yard” syndrome that has hampered alternative energy.
The Wampanoags frame their challenge in particularly evocative terms:
“We…who opened our arms [to the Pilgrims] and allowed people to come here for religious freedoms, are now being threatened with having our religion taken away for the profits of one single group of investors.”
However, they aren’t the only ones opposing the Cape Wind project, which is the farthest along of the nation’s offshore wind farms. An interest group, the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, formed by local towns and businesses affected by the project (such as commercial fishermen) opposes the project, as did the late Senator Edward Kennedy (the Kennedy family compound would have its ocean view affected).
The dispute highlights a problem facing alternative energy. Wind or solar power may not emit carbon, but it is land intensive. Green power tends to have a fairly low energy density, especially as compared to fossil fuels; a lot of land (or ocean) is required to generate meaningful amounts of power. And as much as most people like the idea of green energy in the abstract, few want to live next to solar or wind farms.
Once building alternative energy plants moves from theoretical to actual, opposition tends to spring up. Whether couched in religious or other terms, it tends to boil down to: “We don’t want that here.”
And there’d be a lot less whining if they were just off the vineyard I’m sure
Thanks for your comment, KB, and your sarcasm is probably justified. As Steve points out, the objections to the Cape Wind project fit part of a larger pattern. The support for renewable energy like wind and solar tends to evaporate when the time comes to break ground on large-scale projects, because any ground is subject to competing claims–even if it’s offshore. What is an area where local residents would embrace the sight of fields of wind turbines?
I can’t say that I love the appearance of wind farms, but if one appeared in my area, I certainly wouldn’t object. Anybody who thinks these things ruin the land needs to be sat down and forced to watch a documentary about mountaintop removal mining, another one about coal pollution, and one about the destructive effects of uranium mining.
Thanks for the comment, Jon. You make a very good point. While an ocean view without wind turbines may be preferable to one with turbines, the reduction of destructive and dirty fossil fuel recovery operations like the ones you mentioned is more than worth the trade off.