11/07/09 - In the eyes of state planners, the waters off Martha’s Vineyard, like those off Block Island, are prime locations for introducing the state’s first wind power farms. The difference is that Rhode Island officials envision eight turbines in the state waters south of Block Island. Massachuetts’ draft ocean plan envisions up to 166 turbines in the state waters off Cuttyhunk and Noman’s Land.

In addition, the Massachusetts plan would allow small “community wind farms” within 1,500 feet of the shore.

What frosts Vineyarders is that these are the only places along the entire Bay State coastline that the state task force has found suitable for wind farms. And they were picked out with zero input from the island.

They’re not against wind power, they say at public meetings, but they fear the effect on their vital tourism trade of such a concentration of offshore contraptions.

Many criteria

State officials have come to the island to explain why the off-island sites are the only suitable wind power sites in the state. Flipping one overlay over another, they show shipping lanes, commercial fishing activity, recreational boat traffic, whale habitat, eelgrass beds, endangered birds, controlled airspace, power grid infrastructure — and, most important, water depth and wind speed. Depths of more than 30 meters (almost 100 feet) were ruled out, as were areas north of Cape Cod without sufficient wind speeds.

Of course, big wind farms should be out beyond the three-mile state limit, these state officials say, but the lead time is very long: technology for deep-water towers is still years away and the federal leasing process is very slow-moving, they say.

Meanwhile, the state faces a self-imposed deadline of producing 20 percent of its power needs by the year 2020.

Angry islanders

The first hearing after islanders realized they were in the target area was an angry affair; more than 100 people turned out to “rail against the plan,” the Vineyard Gazette reported.

They were upset because they’d had no voice in preparation of the draft plan and because it seems to strip away the review powers of the Martha’s Vineyard Commission over development in island waters.

So they first thing they did was to ask the commission to initiate a district of critical planning concern (DCPC) that would, in effect, control all building projects exceeding 220 feet above mean sea level in the waters of Dukes County. The immediate effect is a year-long moratorium; the avowed purpose is to establish an island-driven framework for such projects. (The commission carefully excluded wind towers on land, where several municipal wind power projects are pending.)

Meanwhile, an island delegation has tried fruitlessly to get a meeting with Gov. Deval Patrick or his energy secretary.

The secretary’s assistant did bring to islanders an invitation to join a state-federal task force to lay the groundwork for big-scale wind farm development in deep federal waters. He also said the state would not “ram a project down the throat of a community that doesn’t want it.”

But for right now, island leaders remain unmollified.

Island differences: an analysis

The difference between the Martha’s Vineyard experience and the Block Island experience with state wind power initiatives couldn’t be greater, and it’s not just the raw numbers.

The Vineyard has a much larger population, of course; it has a fully formed town and county political structure. It doesn’t go to Beacon Hill hat in hand to lobby, but to consult. It’s better represented — it and Nantucket elect a representative and both share a senator with Cape Cod.

Yet inevitably there’s a sense of distance from state power; the Vineyard, like Block Island, knows that in the Capitol its unique concerns are submerged in the larger issues of the day — notably, right now, crushing revenue deficits and spending cutbacks.

Also, Boston is much more environmentally active than Providence; environmental organizations blanket Beacon Hill and have a lot of clout. Needless to say, they support wind power with scant consideration for local concerns. In contrast, Rhode Island doesn’t even have a bottle bill.

And Vineyard residents are not driven by debilitating electricity costs to clutch at almost any hope for better, as Block Island residents may be. The Vineyard is much closer to and more connected to the mainland, from which it gets its electricity.

But still, one suspects that if Rhode Island and Deepwater Wind intended to erect 166 towering turbines just south of Block Island, they would think they had punched open a wasp’s nest of angry islanders, as Massachusetts energy officials must think today.

Based upon original reporting from the Martha’s Vineyard Times, the Vineyard Gazzette and the Cape Cod Times.