Sow and Pigs: No Windmills in Cuttyhunk's Back Yard, Please

Here's a letter to Cuttyhunk Island's Board of Selectmen, about a proposed windmill farm off Cuttyhunk's west end, which this letter opposes.





Dear Town of Gosnold (Cuttyhunk) Selectmen,

I'm writing to give voice to putting any possible wind farms far, far from Cuttyhunk or Sow and Pigs (a small, nearly underwater reef of rocks off Cuttyhunk's West end, with very good fishing).

What does Cuttyhunk stand to gain from a huge wind factory farm off Sow and Pigs? Any Windmill company, or investors, in conjunction with the State of Massachusetts, wouldn't necessarily give any money or energy to Cuttyhunk, - unless investors live on Cuttyhunk itself. Such a Windmill company might use Cuttyhunk as a staging ground, although they probably can install industrial wind machinery from barges.

So, what does Cuttyhunk stand to gain? A big, possibly very noisy, radical change of the land- and sea-scape, due to an industrial, wind factory close to Cuttyhunk, which might interfere dramatically with fishing?

And all or most of the financial and energy benefits would go elsewhere. Why not put any windmill farm 20 miles off Cuttyhunk's shore, and have the Windmill company pay the costs of extra underwater cable to transport the energy?

In my experience, the Town of Gosnold has never taken an entrepreneurial role, and is unlikely, for example, to try aggressively to get low cost power from energy utilities and any local windmills in perpetuity, using many legal avenues to strategize how to do this, and getting involved in the planning process every step of the way, over decades. (But this would be a most sensible approach ... ). Instead, for example, the Town of Gosnold didn't want to buy the hookup for the windmill in the 1970s, which T. S. built at his own expense, just as it didn't accept free solar power to Cuttyhunk, which Alan D. mentioned in a recent email to me. Historically, Cuttyhunk has gotten most revenue from the Cuttyhunk Marina and from property taxes. I don't see this likely to change very much.

I could even envision a scenario where Cuttyhunk energy costs go up to help cover paying for 66 new, 480-feet-high (higher than 3 times higher than the highest point on Cuttyhunk) windmills - a wind farm factory - in a prime striped bass fishing area close to Sow and Pigs. I wonder, too, if fishermen who have come to Cuttyhunk to hire striped bass fishing guides, for decades, might choose to go elsewhere in the future, because "fishing under the windmills just isn't what it used to be." I see many reasons to conserve what Cuttyhunk has and put the windmills far, far from Cuttyhunk. By installing them near No Man's Land, and/or far out to sea, the State of Massachusetts will still be making significant strides in reducing carbon production contributing to global warming.

No windmills in Cuttyhunk's back yard, please,
Scott


Scott MacLeod





(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/12/sow-and-pigs-no-windmills-in-cuttyhunks.html - December 18, 2009)