Cape Wind - The Book

An Expert Applies Science To Policy

From the Providence Journal

01:00 AM EDT on Monday, March 15, 2010

* *By WENDY WILLIAMS*

WOODS HOLE

When William Y. Brown, who took over as the new director of the Woods Hole Research Center on Feb. 1, was studying terns in Hawaii in the 1970s for his zoology doctoral thesis at the University of Hawaii, he saw a rabbit attack a tern on her nest.

When the bird rose up in response, the rabbit rolled the eggs out of the nest and ate them.

Very odd. He wrote about his sighting in The Auk, the scientific journal of the American Ornithological Union.

“To my knowledge, that’s the only known published instance of rabbit predation on eggs,” Brown, now 61, said during an interview in his clean and uncluttered Research Center office.

Brown is not a typical scientist. After he earned his doctorate, he went on to earn a law degree. “I wanted to armor myself to be an environmentalist,” he explained. Thus armed, he entered public policy.

He sure started off with a bang.

After graduating from Harvard Law, Brown, at 30, was appointed executive secretary of the U.S. Endangered Species Scientific Authority. No one really knew exactly what that meant. Would his department just be responsible for providing scientific data to Congress and the policy makers?

Not under Brown.

The American Trappers Association called his first policy initiative “The Pearl Harbor of Wildlife Management.” For the trappers, Pearl Harbor day was Aug. 30, 1977. That’s when Brown’s regulations banning international trade in bobcat fur appeared in the Federal Register. Brown and his small, young and eager staff believed that many states, including Louisiana, were unable to provide sufficient data proving that their bobcat populations were healthy enough to sustain substantial trapping. Therefore, the furs were not eligible for international trade.

Before the subsequent brouhaha was over, Brown was sued by Louisiana, had lightened up on the agency regulations, and was then sued by the nonprofit group Defenders of Wildlife.

In the end, no party got all of what it wanted, but Brown won for the federal government the precedent of the ability to aggressively limit the participation of Americans in the international wildlife trade.

As a result of his policy actions, the hunting and trading of many U.S. animals was banned — an action that many people say helped the U.S. maintain populations of many species, such as the American alligator, that might otherwise have disappeared but that have since made spectacular comebacks.

This made Brown quite popular with environmentalists and conservationists. But he’s not so popular with some other groups.

“I think we did the right thing,” Brown said during the interview. “We jolted the states into action, into finding out what their wildlife was doing.”

When the Carter administration fell to Ronald Reagan, Brown left government and worked for a while as acting head of the Environmental Defense Fund. Then he went to work in the private sector, heading up environmental remediation for, of all corporations, the mega-garbage-collection company Waste Management Inc.

When the Clinton administration took office, Brown returned to Washington as a science adviser to Bruce Babbitt’s Interior Department. He helped bring the problem of coral-reef destruction to the forefront of both public discussion and public policy, and was instrumental in establishing several National Wildlife Refuges that protected several threatened coral reefs. While still in government, he began creating the 140,000-square-mile Papahânaumokuâkea Marine National Monument in the Hawaiian Islands, ultimately established by former president George W. Bush.

Twenty-five years ago, the private nonprofit Woods Hole Research Center was established to facilitate applying scientific research to public policy. The center’s founder, George Woodwell, had gained recognition when his research supported Rachel Carson’s finding (later made famous in her book “Silent Spring”) that DDT was causing persistent environmental harm.

When industry resisted Carson’s, Woodwell’s and other scientists’ research, Woodwell took the further step, somewhat unusual for a scientist, of working to ensure that DDT would be banned.

Woodwell headed the Research Center for many years but is now retired. If the center wanted another leader who was not an ivory-tower academic and who would apply scientific knowledge to public policy, it certainly got one.

Cape Cod-based science journalist Wendy Williams is completing her next book, “The Vertebrates’ Conceit: The Curious, Exciting and Slightly Disturbing Science of Squid and Octopus,” to be published by Harry Abrams Inc.

Salazar Decides to Decide

Department of Interior News Release:

Secretary Salazar Moves toward Final Decision on Cape Wind

WASHINGTON― Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today concluded the historic preservation consultation process for the proposed Cape Wind energy project in Nantucket Sound, clearing the way for a final decision on the project.

The Secretary notified the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation that the parties to the consultations have not been able to reach agreement on mitigation actions for the proposed wind turbine farm in federal waters of Nantucket Sound. The Council has 45 days to provide an opportunity for the consulting parties and the public to offer their views. The Advisory Council will then provide its comments to the Secretary, who will take those comments into consideration before deciding whether to approve or deny the project.

“The time has come to bring the reviews and analysis of the Cape Wind Project to a conclusion,” Secretary Salazar said. “It is clear to me that the consulting parties are not able to bridge their divides and reach agreement on actions to minimize and mitigate the Cape Wind Project’s effects on historic and cultural resources. I am asking the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation for their comments and I will then make a final decision on the proposal. The parties, the public, and the permit applicants deserve resolution and certainty.”

Under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, federal agencies must take into account the effects of a proposed project on historic properties and determine through the consultation process whether agreement can be reached on minimizing or mitigating any adverse effects of the proposed project. Parties may reach agreement on mitigation measures and sign a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) detailing agreed-upon actions, or may terminate the consultation under Section 106 if one of them determines that further consultation would not be productive. The parties to a potential MOA – the Minerals Management Service, Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, Massachusetts State Historic Preservation Officer and Cape Wind LLC – have been meeting since July 2008 to consider effected sites and since June 2009 to consider potential measures to mitigate adverse impacts on identified historic and cultural resources in and around Nantucket, Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket Sound.

During a meeting on January 13, 2010 with the various consulting parties in Washington, D.C., the Secretary set a March 1 deadline for determining whether it was possible to reach agreement on acceptable mitigation measures for the project. The Secretary then traveled to Massachusetts on February 2, 2010 to continue the 106 consultation process, meeting with the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) and visiting several of the tribal cultural sites, as well as viewing the proposed project site in Nantucket Sound.

The Department is releasing today a letter that officially notifies the parties that the Secretary has terminated the Section 106 consultation, and is requesting input from the Advisory Council.

Background

Cape Wind Associates, LLC has proposed to construct and operate a commercial wind energy facility on the Outer Continental Shelf offshore of Massachusetts. The project calls for 130 turbines of 3.6 megawatts, each with a maximum blade height of 440 feet, to be arranged in a grid pattern in 25 square miles of Nantucket Sound in Federal waters offshore Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket Island. The projected maximum electric output would be 468 megawatts (average of 183 MW) and serve communities in the Nantucket Sound area.

Review of the Cape Wind project began in 2001 when Cape Wind Associates, LLC applied for a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) to construct an offshore wind power facility on Horseshoe Shoal in Nantucket Sound, offshore of Massachusetts. Over the next three years, the Corps completed a Draft Environmental Impact Statement along with a separate review and issuance of a permit to construct a meteorological tower for data collection purposes.

After the adoption of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the Department of the Interior was given authority for offshore wind projects, including the Cape Wind application, and since that time has completed an Environmental Impact Statement and conducted eight official National Historic Preservation Act Section 106 meetings in Massachusetts and Washington, D.C. This is in addition to many other discussions with tribal officials, state officials, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation and other consulting parties, as well as official public commenting periods conducted during the environmental review and Section 106 consultation process. Over the course of the Cape Wind project review process, the MMS collected and analyzed approximately 75,000 public comments.

U.S. Rep. William Delahunt shells out $500G from coffers

By Jessica Van Sack | Friday, February 26, 2010 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Local Politics
Photo
Photo by Lisa Hornak

U.S. Rep. William Delahunt blew nearly $560,000 in campaign cash last year - much of it on lavish meals and a family-friendly payroll that includes his ex-wife, son-in-law and daughter - stoking speculation the Quincy Democrat is emptying his war chest and won’t seek re-election.

Nickolai Bobrov, who is married to Delahunt’s daughter Kara, has raked in $47,732 since landing on the payroll as the congressman’s campaign manager in July, including a $10,000 payment that month marked retroactive for “consulting services April-July,” according to campaign finance records.

Bobrov also is listed as treasurer of Delahunt’s Campaign for Change political action committee, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Kara Delahunt, who recently bought a $620,000 Milton manse with Bobrov, pocketed hundreds in campaign cash as a “freelance photographer,” records show. Delahunt’s PAC also paid her $421 for photography services last month.

Katharina Delahunt, the congressman’s ex-wife, pulled in $48,000 as a receptionist and executive assistant for the campaign, a position she’s held full-time since 2005, records show.

Delahunt, 68, also has dished out sizable sums on expensive meals, including more than $3,000 at Quincy’s Alba Bar and Grill in the first quarter of 2009, and another $7,000 for a confab at the upscale eatery in July.

All told, Delahunt’s campaign committee doled out $558,354 last year, leaving his war chest with less than $570,000, records show. The seven-term congressman raised a paltry $42,000 last year.

Delahunt spokesman Mark Forest said Bobrov is “excellent” at what he does. “He’s a great guy,” Forest said. “Everything is totally proper. Totally legal.”

As for Kara Delahunt, she is “a freelance photographer with an established business, hired for her creative expertise to document events,” Delahunt campaign treasurer Thomas Kiley wrote to the Federal Election Commission last year.

Delahunt told the Herald last week that he was still weighing whether to seek re-election, but Democratic Party sources have privately indicated his departure is anticipated - and expected to draw a host of candidates-in-waiting out of the woodwork.

Tory Mazzola, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, blasted Delahunt’s big-spending ways.

“It’s this type of unaccountability in government that allows career politicians like Bill Delahunt to get away with such a partisan record,” he said. “If he decides to put this high-dollar family campaign staff to use this cycle, we plan to hold him accountable.”

Regarding Traditional Cultural Properties

From Today's Providence Journal:

01:00 AM EST on Tuesday, February 16, 2010

* *By WENDY WILLIAMS*

MASHPEE

On Ground Hog Day, Feb. 2, in the town of Mashpee, Mass., U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar met in the pre-dawn hours with the Wampanoag Indian tribe.

Salazar was investigating the world-famous Cape Wind offshore wind project. After a brief office meeting, he and tribal members drove to a private resort beach, lined with large summer homes, overlooking Nantucket Sound, the proposed wind-farm site.

Some of the entourage stood on the deck of the resort’s restaurant, but Salazar, dressed in well-shined cowboy boots, lightly worn blue jeans and a very battered cowboy hat, walked with the Wampanoags’ George “Chuckie” Green and about 10 others to the water’s edge.

There Green, dressed in typical New England gear of a winter parka and warm pants, performed a ceremony that, he says, has been performed there for thousands of years.

The sun was showing off that morning. As the red disk rose over the Atlantic horizon, pillows of passing clouds threw off golden rays. A column of sunlight reflecting off the water looked like a glimmering pathway leading from the beach to far-distant celestial spheres.

Hollywood couldn’t have done it better.

Green hunkered down. He sprinkled grains of something — Green is very private about the ceremonial specifics — into the water.

After a few minutes, the group trudged back up the winter beach.

The event was unique: the cowboy-hatted interior secretary standing in the winter chill to watch the sun rise with a group of American Indians on, of all places, a Cape Cod beach.

Even more unusual is Salazar’s legal conundrum.

If the project were built, 130 huge wind turbines would stand about five miles offshore in between the resort beach and the rising sun.

That, say the Wampanoags, interferes with their religious rights, guaranteed to them under the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978. In April 2008, Green wrote to the Feds about the “significant cultural and religious need for us to have a clear unobstructed view of the southeast horizon.”

Green says the Wampanoags inhabited Horseshoe Shoal, where the wind farm would go, 10,000 or so years ago, as the last Ice Age was receding and the shoal about to be drowned by the meltoff. His ancestors, he asserts, may be buried out there. This brings into play the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act of 1990.

Rather than build Cape Wind, the tribe wants Nantucket Sound, roughly 560 square miles, listed as a “Traditional Cultural Property,” a legal designation created by Congress in 1992 under the National Historic Preservation Act. Some state and federal officials agree that the whole water body is indeed eligible for listing.

No proof exists of human habitation on the now-submerged shoal, although archaeologists have found evidence of trees and grasses. The project developer relocated several turbines to preserve potential archaeological opportunities.

Listing Nantucket Sound as a Traditional Cultural Property does not preclude Cape Wind, but it could add years to the permitting process, already about 8 1/2 years old.

First formally proposed in 2001, the 468-megawatt project received a largely positive environmental review in January 2009. Usually, Interior issues a final permit within 30 days of that event. Debate over the viewshed has now taken more than a year. Salazar has asked parties to compromise, but has admitted that this is unlikely.

Salazar promises a probably precedent-setting decision in April.

The wind industry says that rejecting Cape Wind would discourage other offshore wind development. They are probably correct. Cape Wind’s developers have invested more than $40 million in their permitting effort. Rejection at this point means that raising the massive amount of money required for offshore construction — in Cape Wind’s case, possibly as much as $2 billion — would be a Herculean task.

The administration of Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, an outspoken supporter of Cape Wind, sent Salazar a letter warning that such a rejection based on Traditional Cultural Property potential could have “far-reaching consequences for bodies of water across the nation.”

Similar controversies exist elsewhere in America. Three days before Salazar’s Mashpee visit, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack visited Superior, Ariz., to sort out a disagreement among a group of Apache Indians, a mining company called Resolution Copper, and town residents. Resolution wants to swap some Tonto National Forest land for land not currently under federal ownership. The company hopes to mine copper on the currently federal site. Some Indians say the forest land, including a cliff called “Apache Leap,” is a traditional site revered by the tribe. Some local non-Indians, hoping for jobs, want the land swap.

The designation of “Traditional Cultural Property” was coined by several government officials, including archaeologist and one-time federal employee Thomas King. In existence for nearly 20 years, its precise limits remain unclear.

Examples of TCPs include the Sandia Sandbars, in the Rio Grande, used by the Sandia Pueblo people for religious rituals; California’s Tecate Peak, near the Mexican border, said by the Kumeyaay Indians to hold special power; and Spirit Mountain, in Laughlin, Nev., considered the center of creation for the Yuman people.

Other non-Indian cultural sites — such as New Jersey’s Pine Barrens and in Florida’s Everglades — have also been nominated for recognition.

King holds training programs on how to apply the designation. He advocates expanding the current list.

A growing number of observers are voicing concern regarding over-reaching. “There are much broader implications to consider here,” William Kovacs, a U.S. Chamber of Commerce vice president, wrote to the Interior Department.

Indeed. It might behoove Congress to take a look at the Law of Unintended Consequences, then clarify exactly what it meant when it passed the Traditional Cultural Properties legislation.

Original Casino Backers Feeling Jilted by Tribe

From The SouthCoastToday www.southcoasttoday.com

By STEPHANIE VOSK
svosk@capecodonline.com
February 10, 2010 12:00 AM

Tribe leaders may be looking to cut ties with the people who financed their quest for federal recognition, but some of those investors don't want to go quietly.

Over the past decade, Detroit real estate developer Herb Strather formed a group of 300 investors to bankroll the tribe in exchange for a cut of future casino profits. Now that the deal has gone sour, some of the investors are considering taking legal action against the tribe if they're left out of the potential windfall.

"I feel very strongly that we've acted straightforward and honest and we've given our money and some people have given their time and I just don't think it's right," said George Pyne, an East Falmouth summer resident who bought into the project about eight years ago.

Tribe leaders have been working for months to officially cut ties with their original financial backers, Trading Cove and AtMashpee. Meanwhile, they've inked a new deal with a group of Malaysian casino investors.

Strather says he's been told that his contributors will get back between 80 to 90 percent of the money they've doled out, but only if and when a casino opens.

But Strather, who has contributed into the "seven figures" himself, said he'd have to pay his other investors first and wouldn't see a penny.

"This is not expressive of the tribe that met the Mayflower. This is not the same as the tribe that helped Harriet Tubman in the Underground Railroad, that helped the slaves," Strather said last week. "This is completely a vindictive situation."

From 1999 to 2006, AtMashpee covered the tribe's day-to-day costs.

Strather bought a horse farm in Mashpee for the Wampanoag to operate. AtMashpee hired lawyers and lobbyists to push the tribe's stalled petition through the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which ultimately led to the tribe being granted federal recognition in 2007.

In total, the group has doled out more than $25 million over the last decade, said Strather, who headed up the group of investors before stepping down a few years ago.

"We supported the tribe with a very big budget, from Day 1," Strather said. "I never, ever, ever remember saying no."

Now, Strather is hoping tribe members can convince the tribal council to keep his group involved. If not, he may literally take back the farm, he said.

Through an attorney Tuesday, the tribal council rebuffed Strather's claims.

"Herbert Strather has no relationship with the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe," attorney Howard Cooper said in a prepared statement. "His claims have no merit whatsoever, and as such the tribe will not respond further to them."

MONEY TROUBLES

By early 2006, when the tribe received the initial nod from the Bureau of Indian Affairs that it would be recognized, AtMashpee had already spent $15 million.

It was also around this time that tribe members began to ask questions about where that money was actually going and what kind of influence Strather and the people he hired were exerting over the tribe.

Four tribe members went to court in 2006 to try to trace the checks. Their complaint was eventually dismissed and they were banned by the tribal council from participating in any tribal events.

As the tribe's bills piled up and the money ran low, AtMashpee in late 2006 brought in South African casino moguls Sol Kerzner and Len Wolman, who had bankrolled Mohegan Sun. They struck a lucrative deal with the tribe for a more than 6 percent stake in a future casino. AtMashpee retained control of about 5 percent of the investment, Strather has said.

But in 2008, Glenn Marshall, the chairman of the council who signed the initial deal with Strather in 2000, admitted to federal prosecutors that he funneled more than $4 million of Strather's money through a state corporation to make campaign contributions and pay his own bills.

Last year, Marshall pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 3½ years in federal prison.

"I don't know if they're trying to blame me for that or not. I simply wrote checks," Strather said in a recent interview. "No, I didn't scrutinize really a lot because I love the tribe so much. I was so liberal with them, I gave them whatever they asked me."

And when he found out the money wasn't used the way it was supposed to be, "I didn't get mad and sue them," he said.

NEW PARTNERS

Marshall's admission and downfall led to a wave of new tribal leadership. The new council leaders — elected in February 2009 — focused first on cutting ties with many of the advisers and associates that Strather and Marshall had hired.

Later that year, tribal leaders voted not to ratify the agreement with Kerzner, Wolman and Strather. The terms were too unbalanced, tribe leaders said.

But Strather says the disagreement arose because the plan called for a $1.6 billion casino — a model deemed no longer feasible under tough economic conditions. Instead of trying to renegotiate — which Strather says he would have been willing to do — the tribe went looking for other financial backers.

In November 2009, the tribe announced a new deal with Arkana Limited, an affiliate of Kien Huat, which is part of gambling giant Genting Group, the group that backed Foxwoods Resort & Casino in its infancy. The tribe still had not broken off from Kerzner, Wolman and Strather.

"I hope the elders will tell this new council: 'Hey, you wanna make a new deal with somebody, make a new deal. But let the original investors in there,'" Pyne said.

But his son, Jim Pyne, who also invested in the tribe, said while he does want to be a part of the casino, he'd also be happy to get his money back.

"It's been such a long process and it's looked so bad for so long with delays and put-offs. I guess if they gave me my money back today, yeah, I'd take my money back," Pyne said, adding that he isn't privy to the negotiations. "Dealing with the people that we're dealing with, they don't seem like they're ethical in the way that they're treating us."

Lawrence "Sonny" Tobey, co-chair of the tribal elders council, said his group remains behind Strather and his investors "100 percent."

"We look at that commitment as a very valid commitment and, as members of the tribe, want to live up to our responsibilities," Tobey said.

But another tribal elder, Amelia Bingham, who was among the group that sought answers about tribe finances, said Strather "should have been left out of the deal."

"He tricked the tribe," Bingham said, noting, for example, how Strather promised to deed the tribe the horse farm, but never actually did.

As the deal with Trading Cove and AtMashpee is perhaps on the verge of collapse, the tribe and its new investors are already moving forward with new casino plans.

The Wampanoag tribe secured a deal in 2007 with the rural town of Middleboro to build a casino. But in recent months, tribal leaders have met with officials in the city of Fall River about possibly relocating the gaming facility.

The tribe is also continuing talks with state officials as the gambling debate once again heats up on Beacon Hill.

Salazar And Wampanoags Welcome The Sun

Ground Hog Day was welcomed by Interior Secretary Salazar and Wampanoag tribal members at Popponesset.

More pictures and story coming.

Salazar To Witness Sunrise Ceremony?

There is a great news item on the Cape Cod Today web site today about Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar's visit to Boston and possibly to Mashpee to witness the "Sunrise Greeting Ceremony" with the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe that is opposed to the Cape Wind project based on the wind farm obstructing their view of sunrise. The wind farm will be more than 5 miles from the beach that the tribe holds their ceremony at.
Read the complete story here at Cape Cod Today

The Administrations Unmentionable Issue

Cape Wind's fate unclear, even in Obama's hands

By JAY LINDSAY

Associated Press Writer

After eight years of review, the future of a controversial wind farm off Cape Cod now rests in what would seem to be friendly hands - an Obama administration that's pledged to make the U.S. "the world's leading exporter of clean energy."

But it's tough to tell if Cape Wind's prospects just got better or worse.

Obama has never mentioned the project while talking publicly about renewable energy, despite his enthusiasm for the topic and the fact Cape Wind would be the nation's first offshore wind farm.

Some Cape Wind advocates have chalked up Obama's silence to respect for the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, an early and influential Obama backer. Kennedy battled the project fiercely, writing Obama of his opposition the month before he died in August from brain cancer.

To add to the uncertainty, Obama's Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who pledged this month to decide whether to approve Cape Wind by the end of April, has called it "a good project." But two Obama appointees to agencies connected to the project's review have links to its chief opposition, the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound.

U.S. National Park Service head Jonathan Jarvis is the brother of alliance consultant Destry Jarvis. And Federal Aviation Administration chief Randy Babbitt has worked for the alliance. Both are recused from any decisions involving Cape Wind.

The Obama administration is awaiting the Interior Department's Cape Wind review before taking a position, said Moira Mack, a White House spokeswoman. Mack said the administration "believes that investing in wind energy - on and offshore - is an important part of the transition to a low-carbon economy and has supported new policies and investments to help realize that goal."

Cape Wind, expected to cost $1 billion, aims to provide 75 percent of the Cape's electricity with 130 turbines, each about 440 feet tall, erected in Nantucket Sound. Its developers stand to benefit as a major electricity provider to a state aiming to create enough wind power capacity to power 800,000 homes by 2020.

Opponents say the project is a hazard to aviation and wildlife and would mar historic vistas, including the view from the Kennedy compound. They want it moved out of the sound to an alternate site Cape Wind says is not feasible.

Since he took office, Obama has spoken several times about wind energy, including on Earth Day in April, saying wind energy could potentially "generate as much as 20 percent of our electricity by 2030." He also spoke about "enormous interest in wind projects off the coasts of New Jersey and Delaware."

Barbara Hill of the pro-Cape Wind group Clean Power said she finds Obama's silence on Cape Wind "a bit confusing" because its success is so crucial to future offshore wind projects.

Sue Reid, an attorney with the Conservation Law Foundation and a project proponent, said she believes Obama is simply being careful not to prejudge the project before the approval process ends.

"I think it's a matter of him being very principled and measured, as opposed to that he's made up his mind somehow in opposition to the project," she said.

Though Obama has never mentioned Cape Wind, Salazar told The Associated Press in March that "from what I know of the Cape Cod wind project, it is a good project."

Kennedy disagreed, believing Cape Wind was a case of special interests being allowed to trump local concerns for private profit. He said his opposition had nothing to do with the view from his home.

On July 8, Kennedy and U.S. Rep. William Delahunt wrote Obama and asked him to postpone any decision until Cape Wind was subjected to new ocean zoning rules still being devised by Obama's national Ocean Policy Task Force.

"These 'rules of the road' should be established first, before any large-scale industrial energy project is approved in any of our coastal waters," the letter read.

The task force has since said its rules are "not meant to delay or halt" existing projects, but such projects are expected to take the "goals and principles" of the marine zoning rules into account.

Audra Parker of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound said she was hopeful Obama would defer to Kennedy's concerns and honor "Sen. Kennedy's legacy and his deep appreciation for Nantucket Sound."

"Moving the project would certainly do that," Parker said.

In his July letter, Kennedy also asked Obama to direct the task force "to give full consideration to providing protected status for Nantucket Sound," including "possible inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places as a Tribal (sic) Cultural Property."

The sound was ruled eligible for that protection on Jan. 4, when the keeper of the national register, who is under Jonathan Jarvis at the National Park Service, backed a claim by two Wampanoag Indian tribes that the sound was their "Traditional Cultural Property."

The Wampanoag argued the project would interfere with sacred rituals which require an unblocked view of the horizon and would be built on a long-submerged ancestral burial ground. A park service spokesman said Jarvis was not involved in the Wampanoag decision.

That ruling brought the prospect of more delay and prompted Salazar to intervene. If he approves Cape Wind, a few smaller issues would remain, including review by the FAA, headed by Babbitt. He has worked as an alliance consultant on its claims that Cape Wind could interfere with airplane radar signals.

A Department of Transportation spokeswoman said Babbitt has been recused from any involvement in Cape Wind decisions.

Cape Wind spokesman Mark Rodgers said the project will ultimately succeed on its merits, which were validated over years of review. He noted it's the only offshore wind project that could come to fruition during Obama's term.

Back in the Saddle Again

I'm back at my desk after six weeks in Monterey, California, working on my new book -- adventures at sea, and so on and so forth.

Meanwhile, lots has happened on Cape Wind, the most important of which is the public announcement by the Governor's office about the beginnings of power purchase talks between Cape Wind and National Grid, a company which, like NSTAR, transmits power to homes, businesses, schools, etc. etc.

This formal announcement had to be filed with the state Department of Public Utilities, which is also supposed to receive a formal announcement when the talks are completed.

If Cape Wind can manage to get a signed PPA from National Grid, the wind energy company will have a much easier time raising the funding needed to build the project. The total cost of the project is proprietary, but for a number of reasons, I expect that cost to be perhaps as much as $2 billion.

The second important event has both a good side and a bad side. The question of whether or not Nantucket Sound is eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places has been passed on to the federal government, which, by law, is supposed to make a decision fairly quickly.

If the federal government rules that the Sound is not eligible for listing (which would accord with the judgment of the majority of informed parties), then -- presumably -- the federal Minerals Management Agency would finally go ahead and issue Cape Wind the permit it needs in order to begin formally raising money and planning for project construction. (Planning, of course, has been underway for years, but on a relatively informal basis.)

In the unlikely event that the federal government rules that the Sound is eligible for listing, the process will be delayed for years, tied up in endless paperwork and hearings and....you all know the drill.

Since Christmas is coming up, it's unlikely that the public will learn about the outcome of either of these matters until after the New Year.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Energy Head Tilters

Energy head tilters for this week*
By Elisa Wood
October 8, 2009
I’ve been writing about energy for 20 years. And during those years, I’ve heard many out-of-the box concepts and witnessed some surprising trends. But it seems that lately head-tilting news comes along more and more frequently, a sign I think of how quickly innovation is occurring in the electric power industry.
Below are three ideas that caught my attention this week as I covered the industry. Perhaps you have your own head-tilters to add. Please do!
By the way, two decades ago solar and wind power were pretty much oddball ideas. Consider that before judging any comments.
/A 14-year-old boy in an impoverished African village, who has never heard of the Internet, built a working windmill out of scrap material/
Too poor to attend school anymore William Kamkwamba went to a US-sponsored library to try to keep up on his learning. There the Malawian boy found diagrams for building windmills and painstakingly followed the directions to bring electricity and water to his famine-stricken village. He scavenged for junk and found old bike parts, pipes and fans to make it work. His fellow villagers thought he was crazy until he succeeded. His story is chronicled in his book, “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind.”
There is some irony here that an attempt has been underway for 10 years to build offshore wind power on wealthy Cape Cod, with no luck. Maybe the region needs to hire Kamkwamba as a consultant.