Apr 10 - Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News - Jenna Russell The Boston Globe

To Mao Rojas, building 130 windmills in the middle of Nantucket Sound would be like paving over the old-fashioned cobblestone streets on Nantucket with concrete.

"I have to say, I think it's a bad idea," said the 38-year-old contractor, who has lived on Nantucket for 14 years. "It doesn't feel right. Not here."

Popular wisdom, long accepted on both sides of the wind farm debate, says that Rojas's misgivings are widely shared by year-round residents of Nantucket. That notion will be put to the test tomorrow, when the 7,885 voters on the island 30 miles off Cape Cod face a ballot question on the hotly contested project. Wind farm proponents predict that the outcome will be closer than expected.

Both sides have lobbied vigorously on Nantucket in recent weeks, handing out leaflets outside the post office and calling registered voters at home to track their opinions. Those efforts continued in recent days, despite a larger drama unfolding in Washington, D.C., where members of Congress drafted a measure last week that would give the governor of Massachusetts the authority to kill the wind farm project. If approved, it would probably mean the death of the proposal; Governor Mitt Romney and most of the candidates seeking election this fall have said they would block the wind farm if they could.

"We're not going to go down without a fight," said Chelsea Harnish, membership coordinator for Clean Power Now, a pro-wind farm group based on Cape Cod.

The fight over the wind farm, which would be the first project of its kind in the country, has grown steadily more bitter over its five-year history. Supporters have invoked dire warnings about global warming and the need for alternative energies; they have also attempted to paint their opponents as oceanfront property owners worried about their own views.

Opponents, meanwhile, raised more than $8 million for their cause in the last two years, using sophisticated fund-raising strategies to target wealthy business leaders with ties to the Cape and islands.

On Nantucket, residents said, the issue had not been much debated until recently, when activists on both sides started campaigning. The election results will have no direct effect on the outcome of the project, but are likely to influence future positions taken by local officials.

The island's 12-member regional planning board, the Nantucket Planning and Economic Development Commission, placed the question on the ballot. It asks voters if the town should "support the generation of electricity by wind power as proposed for a site in Nantucket Sound."

Andrew Vorce, the planning commission's director, said members of the group felt they needed to gauge public opinion before deciding whether they should take a position on the wind farm.

Another Massachusetts town has posed a similar ballot question. Last May in Mashpee, 59 percent of voters said they disagreed with "the concept of a wind farm in Nantucket Sound."

About 20 percent of registered voters participated in the 1,075-to-713 decision.

The wind farm would be 6 miles from the Cape at its closest point, compared with 14 miles from the town of Nantucket. "On Nantucket, in clear conditions, [the windmills] would be tiny specks on the horizon," said Mark Rodgers, a spokesman for Cape Wind.

The power-generating turbines would stand in rows in a shallow, central area of Nantucket Sound, the body of water between Cape Cod and Nantucket that is crisscrossed daily by ferries to the island. At their highest point, the blades atop the towers would stand 417 feet above the water.

A study two years ago by the Massachusetts Historical Commission found that the wind farm would alter scenic views from Nantucket's historic district and from the Great Point lighthouse, as well as other historic sites on the Cape and Martha's Vineyard.

That worries David Murray, owner of Murray's Beverage Store on Nantucket, a Main Street institution for 70 years. "The Cape and islands is all tourists, so it's all about aesthetics," he said.

Among a half-dozen Nantucket residents interviewed last week, concerns about the proposal were widespread. Most frequently mentioned were fears that the project might endanger migrating birds and fish and could threaten the safety of boats in the area.