You're like the wind. In my NIMBY.

March 15, 2010 10:39 PM

The future of Cape Wind will be loudly contested for another few weeks. The latest wrinkle seems to be conflicting claims about the project's impact on sacred Wampanoag rituals and cultural heritage. There might even be a movie about it all. Previously.

If all this gives you a headache and you just miss the vineyard, MV times has webcams.

posted by vrakatar (19 comments total)

I bet those rich people who suddenly became sincere, concerned environmentalists who just want to see the wind farm done properly (i.e. not placed where they have to look at it) just about peed their expensive pants when they got some Wampanoag on board. I'll bet they also handed out some cash (because that's what dirty lobbyists do), but obviously I don't have any evidence.

I heard a discussion on Boston Public Radio about this that made me want to drive into a tree. The rep for the anti Cape Wind organization was saying all this cynical, disingenuous shit about how they're really concerned about the environment, but the location of the project (on the horizon of rich peoples' views) is not the place for it, and a wind farm is probably not a good idea anyway because it won't generate enough power to be cost effective.

Then they had a member of the Wampanoags saying that the project would chase away fish and destroy some of their sacred traditions. The problem is that they guy didn't have any special knowledge-- he wasn't a marine biologist and he wasn't an engineer. He was just some dude who was 1/16th Native American or whatever. People with actual experience in this sort of thing say it won't affect fish stocks.

The biggest contributor to the anti Cape Wind organizations is Bill Koch, who besides having a house in the zone is the founder of the Oxbow Group, which makes its money trading in petroleum and coal.
posted by Mayor Curley at 4:35 AM on March 16, 2010 [2 favorites]

You'd think that this was about a nuclear power plant, for all the hyperbolic argument the opposition has used. The made-up "sacred site" stuff is a new one.

Senator Ted's opposition was a big pile of hypocricy. This Mashpee involvement brings to mind his sister-in-law Jackie's attempts to block those same Native Americans' access to a sacred Martha's Vineyard beach. She preferred to do her topless sunbathing without any native observers.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:43 AM on March 16, 2010

Where I wrote "Mashpee," substitute "Wampanoag."

Thanks
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:47 AM on March 16, 2010

I bet those rich people who suddenly became sincere, concerned environmentalists who just want to see the wind farm done properly (i.e. not placed where they have to look at it) just about peed their expensive pants when they got some Wampanoag on board. I'll bet they also handed out some cash (because that's what dirty lobbyists do), but obviously I don't have any evidence.

There's almost no doubt that this is the case. Otherwise, why has this just come to the forefront in the past few months, and why can't any of the tribal members who oppose the project offer any specific information about the impact they're fearing besides that the turbines will block their view of the rising sun? I mean seriously, the other argument I've heard is that the underwater land used to not be underwater and they might have buried people on that land in an undetermined location at some undetermined time.

I watched something similar happen (although much more in the open) when I briefly lived in South Kent, CT. Subway restaurant founder and billionaire Fred DeLuca is involved in funding a push for tribal recognition for a tribe there, the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation, (not to be confused with the Schaghticoke Indian Tribe, but that's another story) in order to ride their recognition to build a third casino in the state. Not in DeLuca's backyard, of course, but in Danbury or Bridgeport. The tribe was recognized, but the ruling was reversed after intense efforts by regional leaders and Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. The battle is continuing, but if things stay as they are it will turn out that DeLuca and some greedier tribe members will have cost the entire tribe their recognition.
posted by rollbiz at 5:26 AM on March 16, 2010

Why would people for whom the "way we've always done things" is perfect support a project to move forward? To hell with the rest of the rats on the sinking ship, they're standing on the prow!

Amazing how rich folk who don't want a clean, new, shiny wind farm can do it under the guise of "protecting the indigenous peoples" and other slick lobbying. Poor people who don't want another coal-fired plant next to their drinking water reservoir, on the other hand, are "whiners" and don't understand how many jobs the plant will provide.
posted by sonic meat machine at 5:57 AM on March 16, 2010

I'll bet they also handed out some cash...

From the 'conflicting' hyperlink:

"Mark Rodgers, Cape Wind spokesman, said, 'We retained Wynn and Wynn to advise us on Indian affairs including the relevant federal statutes and to facilitate discussion of possible mitigation measures with the tribes.'

Mitigation took the form of a $1 million offer from the developer that tribal leaders refused, according to a member of the tribe.

Reached by telephone Tuesday and asked if Cape Wind had offered the Gay Head Wampanoag $1 million, Mr. Rodgers said, 'There has been discussion of financial mitigation, that much I can say.'"

Mitigation = Bribe to Shut Up and Go Away.
posted by ericb at 5:58 AM on March 16, 2010

Just spent last weekend working with one of the Mashpee Wampanoag in a museum program. Granted, he's not part of the same group as the Aquinnah Wampanoag, but it was disheartening to hear his quite sincere presentation on climate change and protecting the earth as his people had done for milennia, only to hear these reports filtering out at the same time. It's a pity - this is one of the ways the repercussions of colonialism will continue to be felt for ages.

In addition to the webcams, a good way to get a dose of Happy Vineyard is livestreaming WMVY. I like the commercial band, which allows me to pretend that this evening I can swing by the Net Result, grab some seafood to cook up, and then go hear whoever's at the Ritz.
posted by Miko at 6:08 AM on March 16, 2010

The objections to Cape Wind never cease to fill me with werewolf rage.
posted by ged at 7:24 AM on March 16, 2010

The Mashpee and Gay Head Wampanoag say Cape Wind would be built on long-submerged burial grounds and interfere with sacred rituals.

This sounds so speculative. Well, I don't know about the rituals, but burial grounds? Submerged burial grounds? Okay, sure. But right now, scallop dredgers get to trawl those same bottoms. And every new construction that goes up on the Cape and Islands is likely interfering with burials. Why oppose just this? Why not protest every new McMansion?
posted by Miko at 7:40 AM on March 16, 2010 [3 favorites]

Why oppose just this? Why not protest every new McMansion?

Because the builders of most McMansions aren't opposed by a bunch of rich hypocrites who can bribe them handsomely.

Seriously, it's 3 years old, but the Daily Show has said everything that needs to be said about this. News flash: rich Democrats believe environmentalism is great until it involves even the barest, most ridiculously over-exaggerated inconvenience for them.
posted by tocts at 8:37 AM on March 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

Maybe a coal fed power plant that doesn't block the view would offer a compromise everyone could live with?
posted by Tashtego at 9:29 AM on March 16, 2010

Because the builders of most McMansions aren't opposed by a bunch of rich hypocrites who can bribe them handsomely.

To clarify, I do understand this dynamic. I was just noting its failure as a point of logic.
posted by Miko at 9:58 AM on March 16, 2010

The (Gay Head) Aquinnah Wampanoag tribal lands are on the western end of Martha's Vineyard, nowhere near the spot on which the windmills will be put.

There's another argument against this project: it's being run by a private for-profit company that will be using public resources to enrich its shareholders.
posted by mareli at 10:48 AM on March 16, 2010

The argument the Aquinnah are making is that the farm would possibly be built on top of ancient burial grounds, now submerged - not that they could see it.
posted by Miko at 11:26 AM on March 16, 2010

Aside from NIMBY's, many on the Cape are also concerned about externalized costs and risks that would adversely impact local rate payers (who already pay some of the highest electric rates in the nation), and state/local tax payers.

• Renewable energy mandates. Cape Wind estimates that costs for power from the project will be at least twice that of competing generation capacity in the spot market. To at least some degree, the local rate payers will be a captive audience to this overpriced power.
• Transmission upgrades beyond the generation interconnect point.
• Stranded costs if the project fails.
• The vast majority of projects assets were intentionally located in Federal waters (>3mi offshore). Unlike the siting of a normal power generation facility, only minimal state corporate income or local property tax benefit will be realized.

Frankly, I couldn't care less about the visual impact.
posted by Consult The Oracle at 12:17 PM on March 16, 2010

This sounds so speculative. Well, I don't know about the rituals, but burial grounds? Submerged burial grounds? Okay, sure. But right now, scallop dredgers get to trawl those same bottoms.

Thank you for saying what I scream at my radio every time WBUR has one of the tribal opposition spokespeople on and doesn't call them out on this. Where are the burial grounds, specifically? Were they unaware of where the project was sited for the last 10 years, or were they unaware of where their burial ground was? No one seems to know, and no one in the tribe seems to want to say. It's almost too bad Hollywood to be true: "Don't puht yuh windfaaaahm theyuh, that theyuh's an old Indian burial ground....Heeyuht."

It pains me to cast such a suspicious eye on Native American affairs, but in this case I think it's completely justified.
posted by rollbiz at 4:32 PM on March 16, 2010

"Renewable energy mandates. Cape Wind estimates that costs for power from the project will be at least twice that of competing generation capacity in the spot market. To at least some degree, the local rate payers will be a captive audience to this overpriced power."

Well the Cape locals wouldn't allow a nice cheap NG or Coal fired electrical plant any where near them either so this is typical NIMBYism. We want the power, we don't want the impact.

"The vast majority of projects assets were intentionally located in Federal waters (>3mi offshore)."

There by reducing the visual impact; they got hoisted on their own petard on that one.
posted by Mitheral at 7:16 PM on March 16, 2010

Well the Cape locals wouldn't allow a nice cheap NG or Coal fired electrical plant any where near them either so this is typical NIMBYism. We want the power, we don't want the impact.

Completely incorrect. There is an existing two unit conventionally fired power plant on the Cape. This plant has enough capacity to fully power the needs of the Cape by approximately a factor of 3x (1126MW). Due to lower cost power availability within the ISO New England grid, the plant is kept in continuous live standby and has only been called into active use a handful of days over the last two years.

Also, a nuclear plant (688MW) is located on Massachusetts bay just north of the Cape.

A lack of generation capacity (for the Cape) doesn't seem to be at issue.
posted by Consult The Oracle at 8:26 PM on March 16, 2010

I can see both sides. If we are going to move away from oil and coal, we have to do things like this, sooner or later, but I wonder if Cape Wind will live up to what it claims. If it fails, then all the detractors were right, and perhaps a unique area gets wrecked along the way. But we have to start somewhere, no? And while the Gay Head Wampanoag may not seem to be speaking truth to power here, I find it hard to dismiss their claims in the name of progress. And I do not trust slick energy companies, no matter how green they are. If Cape Wind were a cooperative owned by the people it aims to serve, that would be great, and if something goes wrong the company could not just declare Chap 11 and let the government deal with the fallout. That is my fear. Build it there, but make it work. Make it a standard by which all future wind farms are measured. That is probably too much to ask.
posted by vrakatar at 12:39 AM on March 17, 2010