BOSTON (AP) – The company looking to build the nation’s first offshore wind farm has increased the height of its proposed turbines by 5 percent, or 23 feet.
Cape Wind Associates has prepared new computer simulations that show what the 130 windmills in Nantucket Sound would look like from various vantage points.
The company said increasing the turbine’s height – to 440 feet above sea level when the tallest blade is pointing straight up – would make it more productive on light wind days. It said its new simulations showed no discernible difference from the earlier blueprint.
But opponents of the project have long raised concerns about the project’s affect on wildlife and the area’s scenic views. They say the new simulations show the project will become an industrial eyesore when seen from Cape Cod and residents in Edgartown and Oak Bluffs will be able to make out the turbines much more clearly.
“The turbines will transform one of the most scenic vistas in America to an industrial zone,” said Audra Parker of The Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, which has led opposition to the plan.
Other differences in the project include a slight shift in boundaries to only federal waters and a reduction in red aviation lights on the turbines from 260 to 57.
“This is what getting three-fourths of the Cape and Islands’ electricity from clean renewable energy looks like,” Cape Wind spokesman Mark Rodgers told The Boston Globe.
“To many people they are sleek and elegant and graceful while others don’t like the way they look. It’s in the eye of the beholder.”
The Cape Wind project has become a contentious political issue. Democratic U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, whose family’s Hyannis Port compound would have a clear view of the farm, and Republican Gov. Mitt Romney, have tried to kill the project.
The Minerals Management Service, the federal agency that will decide the farm’s fate, should release a draft report on the project’s environmental impact early next year. After public comment, the agency will make a final decision in early 2008.
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On the Net:
Cape Wind Associates: http://www.capewind.org
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