The most likely candidate for becoming the U.S.’s first offshore wind farm reached another permitting milestone by filing its Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR) on February 15 with the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act (MEPA) Office. It’s now available, and it’s meaty.
It makes two important points to the Marine Mineral Service, which now oversees the process. If the permit is denied, it will a) result in higher costs to Massachusetts citizens, since the state likely wouldn’t meet its requirements for producing more power renewably; but more importantly, b.) it would have a chilling effect on the U.S.’s nascent offshore wind industry in general.
Turbine-haters and unspoiled-view lovers would cheer the latter, of course. But as grassroots group Clean Power Now (the swell Mass. citizen lobby pushing for Cape Wind) puts it so well: "It’s not the view. It’s the vision."
