Feb 23 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Patrick Cassidy Cape Cod Times, Hyannis, Mass.



Even in the chilly world of winter on the Outer Cape, talk of offshore wind turbines can generate some heat.

"I just don't think that wind energy is economically feasible for people of Cape Cod," Mary Allen Bradley of East Orleans said during a hearing yesterday at Eastham Town Hall on a proposed wind energy planning district for Cape waters.

The true cost of energy from wind should be examined more closely before any projects are approved, Bradley said.

"I find that to be just outrageous, as a ratepayer and a taxpayer at the federal and the state level," she said of subsidies and premiums that wind energy needs to compete with fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas.

 The hearing was the second of five being held by the Cape Cod Commission on the designation of a so-called Capewide District of Critical Planning Concern, or DCPC, for renewable-energy projects such as wind turbines. The designated area would begin about 1,500 feet out from mean high water and extend to three miles offshore, covering 521,552 acres of open water.

A DCPC protects designated areas from specific types of development. There have been nine such planning districts established in seven Cape towns since 1990.

Martha's Vineyard, which is also moving forward with plans to establish a wind energy planning district, has 26 of the protected planning areas for various resources and uses, including four that are islandwide.

Full range of views

The Cape Cod Ocean Sanctuary off the Cape Cod National Seashore is already protected under the Massachusetts Ocean Management Plan, which was finalized at the end of last year. The state plan leaves areas in the waters around Cape Cod open to the possibility of as many as 24 community-sponsored wind turbines but gives authority to the Cape Cod Commission and the Martha's Vineyard Commission to determine the appropriate scale of the projects and the rules developers must follow in each agency's jurisdiction.

Despite a turnout of fewer than a dozen people, many of the viewpoints argued by those for and against offshore wind turbines during the debate that has raged for nine years over the proposed Nantucket Sound wind farm were represented.

The planning district would not affect Cape Wind's plan for offshore turbines, as the site envisioned is in federal waters.

If nothing is done, climate change could have devastating impacts, especially for a place like Cape Cod, said Eastham Selectman David Schropfer.

"If anyplace is vulnerable to rising sea levels it is certainly this peninsula," he said. He noted that the high point of land in Eastham is between 16 and 18 feet above sea level, and a parking lot near his home has lost more than half of its parking spaces to the sea over the years.

He also told the Cape Cod Commission representatives that on a recent trip to Alaska he took his wife to see a glacier he had last visited about 15 years earlier.

"It was 100 miles away," from where it had been during his previous visit, he said.

Still, the need for renewable energy must be balanced by its impacts on tourism and the local economy, he said.

"How do we protect this area and how do we use it at the same time?" he asked.

Scaring off developers

Susan Kadar, a former Cape Cod Commission representative from Truro, outlined three reasons she opposes the planning district.

She said it appears the county is wresting power from municipalities over projects off their coast rather than delivering more control to local towns, as county officials have argued. The Cape Cod Commission also seems to be encroaching on towns' control over their "community character," she said.

Finally, Kadar argued, the involvement of the Cape Cod Commission could scare off wind-energy developers who do not want to go through the expense and process of appearing before the agency.

"There are occasions where businesses say, 'I would rather not'" appear before the commission, she said.

For others in the audience the hearing was a chance to learn more about the proposal.

Regulatory authorities need to catch up to changes in what is now possible, Dennis Clark of Truro said after the hearing.

"It's a lot better to have the regulations in place than no regs," he said.

The commission is scheduled to make a recommendation March 11 to the Barnstable County Assembly of Delegates on whether to designate the planning district. The assembly then has 60 days to decide whether to move forward.

If the district is designated, the towns and the Cape Cod Commission would have one year to adopt regulations for the district.

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