A Cape Wind challenge to get it right
By jack clarke
Mass Audubon is challenging the developer of Cape Wind and its permitting agencies to accept monitoring and mitigation conditions that will reduce the risk to birds and other wildlife. If these conditions are adopted, and remaining data gaps are addressed, Mass Audubon will support Cape Wind, the largest renewable-energy project in the Northeast.
Cape Wind consists of 130 wind turbines proposed for Nantucket Sound. It is expected to provide the equivalent of 75 percent of the electricity consumed on Cape Cod.The review of Cape Wind will set the standard for future offshore wind projects in America, and it is important that we get it right.
Mass Audubon proposes this Challenge after five years of review.
Our review of Cape Wind is focused primarily on the project’s impacts on birds and their habitat in order to determine if the project poses any significant threat. While our primary expertise is birdlife, we also believe that other potential impacts should be examined. We rely on the evaluation of our own scientists and the expertise of others in assessing any potential threats to other sea life.
Mass Audubon has identified data gaps in the draft environmental impact statement, including:
• Nighttime distribution and behavior of hundreds of thousands of long-tailed ducks in and around Horseshoe Shoal.
• Movement of endangered terns and threatened plovers during the late summer to early fall migration.
• Abundance and distribution of migrating songbirds.
Our support for Cape Wind is contingent upon these gaps being addressed with a finding of no significant threat. We also propose adoption of an Adaptive Management Plan that will include:
• A rigorous monitoring program beginning at construction and continuing for at least three years post-construction.
• Mitigation measures in the event that the project results in unanticipated significant adverse environmental impacts.
• Compensation for the use of public waters, and enforceable procedures for decommissioning any abandoned turbines.
In addition, an independent panel should be responsible for analyzing data collected for preparing reports, and a mitigation fund should be established
We review Cape Wind in the context of a planet experiencing rapid climate warming, oil spills and air pollution. We know that the combustion of fossil fuels releases greenhouse gases that accumulate in the lower atmosphere and rapidly heat the earth.
Rising sea levels caused by warming will flood low-lying barrier beaches that serve as critical habitat for endangered roseate tern and threatened piping plover. The consequences of climate warming compel us to increase energy conservation as a first priority. And to continue to supply our energy needs, wind should be tapped as the most successful of all renewable energy technologies.
Cape Wind must be balanced against the significant threats to Nantucket Sound posed by fossil-fuel use and rapid climate warming. We must act boldly and quickly; uncertainty should not slow our response to this threat.
Jack Clarke is Mass Audubon’s director of Public Policy & Government. He prepared this op-ed with Taber Allison, Ph.D., VP for Conservation Science & Ecological management at Mass Audubon.
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