The Martha’s Vineyard Commission has been promised the final say over all wind power developments in Island waters, following a concerted campaign by all levels of Vineyard local government against a state plan earmarking them for commercial wind generation.
This was the message delivered to the Island from Ian Bowles, state Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs, this week through the Cape and Islands legislative delegation.
Six thousand years ago, according to native legend and scientific calculation, Nantucket Sound was dry land, and people probably lived and hunted and fished there. Until global warming caused the sea to rise and cover the place.
Ironically, the fact of that long-ago drowning now has become the basis of the latest challenge to the Cape Wind proposal to build a wind farm in Nantucket Sound. The big selling point of Cape Wind is that it would generate power without contributing to global warming, sea level rise and coastal flooding.
Tisbury voters will be asked to defy the weak economy and spend big at a special town meeting Tuesday night. Articles on the warrant call for spending more than $7 million.
The bulk of it, $6.8 million in new borrowing, is earmarked for the construction, equipping and furnishing of the town’s long-planned and sorely needed new emergency services building.
And the figure in the article is only an estimate, although a more accurate figure will be available by the time of the meeting. Bids for the project are due to be opened today.
By MIKE SECCOMBE
Martha’s Vineyard health officials had to end today’s planned four-hour all-Island seasonal flu clinic flu clinic after just two hours, when supplies of vaccine ran out.
Just before 10 a.m., they began turning away cars at the two staging points, at the Agricultural Hall in West Tisbury and Waban Park in Oak Bluffs, as well as walk-in patients at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School.
The Martha’s Vineyard Commission voted without dissent last night to designate the waters around the Vineyard as a district of critical planning concern, cementing a yearlong moratorium on building wind farms in nearshore waters while rules are developed.
But a parallel plan to nominate an Islandwide DCPC on land for wind power developments was successfully resisted by the Edgartown selectmen, who are intent on building a 363-foot tall wind turbine at the town wastewater plant.
Illness presumed to be swine flu has resulted in the absence of an average of more than 100 students each day of the past week from the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School.
And still there is no indication of when Island health authorities will receive enough vaccine to inoculate all Island school children against the disease, much less the broader population.
