New England’s Waters of Controversy

 by Marsha C. Salett, Editor

Conservation Perspectives  

The coastal waters of New England – the Gulf of Maine, Nantucket Sound, Long Island Sound – and the Atlantic Ocean beyond our shores have provided us with sustenance, employment, recreation, and creative and spiritual inspiration for as long as humans have resided by the sea.  For many New Englanders, proximity to the ocean is a prime reason to live on the East Coast; our psyches and our economies are tied to the sea.  This issue of “Conservation Perspectives” addresses two of the most controversial economic and environmental   marine issues that we are dealing with today – fishing and wind power.

New Englanders have been harvesting the ocean for fish and shellfish for centuries.  Unfortunately, we have done it quite badly, depleting many fish stocks and degrading habitats, and are in dire need of new approaches and practices in fisheries management.    Les Kaufman and Jim Wilson, in their article on the appropriate scale for fishery management in New England, advocate incorporating  “finer-scale information flow and policy” – area management that adapts to local knowledge and conditions-- into fishery management   in order to work towards sustainability.    “It is incumbent upon the marine conservation science community in New England to encourage policy makers to bring the best, but also the most original and sophisticated science to bear on fisheries management,” they write. 

On the other hand, harvesting offshore habitats for wind energy is a new idea for New England and we have the opportunity to institute science-based regulatory protocols from the start in order to minimize negative impacts to the environment and to wildlife.

Cape Wind, which has proposed a 130-turbine wind farm on Horseshoe Shoals in Nantucket Sound, has brought the debate about wind power to our own New England backyard.   Renewable, “green” energy such as wind power is a legitimate alternative to fossil fuel.  Some of its proponents would have us believe that there cannot possibly be an adverse environmental impact or an inappropriate site  – without local scientific data to back up such claims.    Some of its opponents are equally unequivocal about the damage such a wind farm will bring to Nantucket Sound – again without the local data to back up their claims.   That a wind farm in Denmark causes low bird mortality or that the wind farm in Altamont, California, is a death trap to hundreds of raptors is worth noting, but doesn’t replace the need to identify the benefits and risks of a large wind farm to our local waters off Cape Cod. 

Cape Wind has declined the invitation to submit an article for “Conservation Perspectives.”  Simon Perkins, field ornithologist for the Massachusetts Audubon Society, states in his article that Mass Audubon does not currently have an institutional position on the wind project for Horseshoe Shoals because “an adequate body of data …is lacking” and that a minimum of three years of data about terns and water fowl, which their scientists are now collecting, is necessary in order to make an informed decision.  Similarly, in his article advocating for wind energy, Richard Podolsky notes that wind projects in the U.S. need to address the potential impact on seabirds and shorebirds, and that “the next several years present an opportunity for marine and conservation biologists to anticipate, examine, and respond to the potential conflicts that might arise between offshore wind power facilities and coastal fauna.”

The Boston Globe, on Monday, November 8, 2004, reported that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ 4,000-page draft environmental impact statement on Cape Wind’s proposed 130-turbine wind farm in Nantucket Sound (to be formally released on November 9) finds few environmental risks to Horseshoe Shoals, its fish, shellfish, and birds, including endangered roseate terns that breed nearby.  The only downside noted by the report, according to the Globe, is an adverse visual impact on the Kennedy compound, the Nantucket Historic district, and several other historic properties.   Obviously, opponents of the wind farm are not going to take the draft report at face value.  The Globe reports that Susan Nickerson, executive director of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, which opposes the wind farm, states that her organization plans to begin its analysis of the wind project after seeing the draft report.  Other, independent studies on the environmental impacts of the Cape Wind project have not been completed nor made public to date.

Les Kaufman and Jim Wilson’s words are no less important when “wind energy” is substituted for “fisheries management.”   They are important enough to bear repeating in this editorial: “It is incumbent upon the marine conservation science community in New England to encourage policy makers to bring the best, but also the most original and sophisticated science to bear on” wind energy.  The Cape Wind project is the middle of a 3-year permitting process subject to the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), and led by the Army Corps of Engineers.  The time for the conservation science community to get involved is now. 

Plan to attend one of the four public hearings to be held on the wind project: Monday, Dec. 6 at Martha's Vineyard Regional High School; Tuesday, Dec. 7 at Mattacheese Middle School, West Yarmouth; Wednesday, Dec. 8 at Nantucket Community School; or Thursday, Dec. 16 At Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge.  For more information and an electronic version of the Draft EIS, go to: http://www.nae.usace.army.mil/projects/ma/ccwf/windfarm.htm

Controversy about fisheries management, wind energy, and other marine issues runs deep when emotions run high.  Let’s get the scientific information we need  -- local, current, unbiased – and get it to all stakeholders and policy makers in order to make policies that protect our coastal ecosystems and manage our resources in a fair and sustainable manner.