Cape Wind dominates the debate on wind energy, but the push for onshore wind is a study in contrasts.
A Cape Cod Times report explains how wind projects proposed for Dennis, Eastham, Harwich, Orleans Wellfleet, West Barnstable, and Truro have gone by the wayside. In towns where blades are turning, such as Falmouth (whose lone turbine began operation early last year), residents bicker with local and state officials over the impacts like noise and flicker. The furor over onshore turbines is so strong that a regional electrical cooperative is backing off an ambitious wind project, preferring to focus instead on a less objectionable renewable power source: solar.
In the Berkshires, it’s a different story. The Berkshire Eagle has generally supported wind projects on its editorial pages, and a recent story updating the status of regional wind projects proclaimed that “Wind could power county.” Four projects are in various stages of development in Savoy, Hancock, Florida, and Monroe—where a long-running battle over Hoosac Wind ended in the state’s highest court. Judges ruled against the wind farm opponents, championed by Green Berkshires, a regional environmental group, which had been doing battle against the projects almost as long as their counterparts on the Cape.
Why do projects in the Berkshires go full steam ahead while proposals on the Cape come up short? One difference is local support. In the Berkshires, town officials and residents in the tiny villages stress the benefits like jobs, payments to towns by wind developers, increased energy self-sufficiency, and even tourism.
However, though areas of the northern Berkshires have excellent wind resources, the state’s most plentiful and commercially viable wind resources are in the east, where the bitter decade-long fight over the Nantucket Sound wind farm galvanized opponents and produced a raft of negative editorials from the Cape Cod Times.
These disputes get little play outside Massachusetts, however. A New York Times editorial spotlighted the Bay State’s plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that rely on more wind power and other renewable energy sources. Not a word was said about noise or flicker.
Meanwhile, offshore wind development marches on. The Obama administration is inviting wind energy companies to lease ocean areas south of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, the Gloucester Times reports.
–GABRIELLE GURLEY
BUSINESS/FINANCE
Delivering a huge blow to Gov. Deval Patrick‘s aggressive clean energy agenda, Evergreen Solar announced that it is shuttering its manufacturing facility in Devens that has received $58 million in state aid. The firm cited slackening demand and cost pressure from heavily-subsidized solar facilities in China as reasons. Evergreen has often served as the poster company for Patrick’s clean tech vision, and he attended the facility’s ribbon-cutting ceremony in 2008.
Formerly the Great Solar Hope, the company plans to lay off 800 workers. State economic development officials, who sunk tens of millions of dollars into the company, say they want the money back. House Minority Leader Bradley Jones, according to a story in the WorcesterTelegram & Gazette, says Evergreen Solar’s departure is a lesson for the governor that “throwing money at companies in industries he approves of won’t necessarily translate into success.” In return for $58 million, the Lowell Sun says the company promised to create 350 jobs and keep them for five years.
The US Chamber of Commerce’s $32 million advertising onslaught is stirring wide-ranging emotions among local chambers, the Worcester Telegram & Gazette reports. CommonWealth’s Jack Sullivan wrote a similar story in November.
A long-delayed study says the state’s film tax credit generated $319 million in new spending on movies, TV shows, and commercials in 20009, but only a third of the money went to Massachusetts residents or businesses, CommonWealth reports.
BEACON HILL
Joseph Kennedy III, a grandson of Robert Kennedy, dazzled attendees with a stirring oration in the Massachusetts House commemorating the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy‘s “City on a Hill” address delivered just days before his presidential inauguration. The Boston Herald is impressed. But the Massachusetts Legislature doesn’t pass the test his great-uncle John F. Kennedy talked of 50 years ago in a speech to lawmakers, the Eagle-Tribune says.
Nearly two-thirds of Massachusetts voters favor an independent redistricting commission, according to a new poll from the MassINC Polling Group.
MUNICIPAL AFFAIRS
Mayor Tom Menino delivered his annual State of the City address last night, a speech that was, as the Globe‘s Andrew Ryan writes, “as much about the mayor’s vitality as it was about his agenda.” The speech, coming after a string of health issues, including recent knee surgery, lacked any big punch. Menino renewed his call for greater control over municipal employee health care plans, an issue already drawing sharp push back from union leaders. Jon Keller says Menino sent an “emphatic mixed message,” including afterwards when the mayor-for-life said he is looking to serve 10 more years. Over at WBUR, David Boeri says the mayor delivered his address standing and exceeded expectations. The Herald was not impressed. An editorial pans much of the address as “a diet of warmed-over ideas” and “happy-talk.”
Lynn Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy says she wants to hire 10 more police officers this fall, many of them to work in the high school, the Lynn Item reports. In Lowell, the police superintendent calls for more money to stem violence. The Lowell Sun says the force has been cut by 16 officers over the last three years and another 28 have been lost to attrition, injury, and long-term sick leave.
ELECTION 2012
Vicki Kennedy tells Scot Lehigh no means no when it comes to talk of a run for the US Senate seat once held by her late husband. She tells NECN’s Alison King the same.
Barack Obama’s reelection committee will kick off this month, and likely begin raising money by March or April.
TUCSON
National Journal‘s Jim O’Sullivan talks to psychiatric experts in an effort to understand the actions of accused Tucson shooter Jared Loughner and any tie-in with the tenor of political debate in the country. The bottom-line headline on the story: “The rhetoric did not make him do it – but it didn’t help, either.”
FISHING
Monkfish is truly ugly and the name has always put off local consumers but a strong overseas market has developed, especially in Japan. So New Bedford’s commercial fishermen turned out in force to shout down a proposed catch limit by the National Marine Fisheries Service, the Standard Times reports.
HEALTH
On “Greater Boston,” Michael Merlina, who works for his family-owned glass company, says he is fighting the state’s health care law because, like many other of the working uninsured, he cannot afford either the mandated insurance for his family or the $2,000 fine for refusing it.
In his newly renamed “Not Running a Hospital” blog, Paul Levy highlights an actuarial-based calculator from GE Healthcare to estimate the cost of medical errors for a given population. He plugged in the Massachusetts population and came away with $260 million, which he says is likely an underestimate.
CHARITY
The American Spectator bemoans the decision by the British YWCA to drop the word “Christian” from its name. But it’s also dropping “Young” “Women’s” and “Association” and changing its name to “Platform 51.”
SNOW FUN
With sledding technology (who knew?) improving, today’s lighter, faster sleds are causing municipal officials to declare hills in public places off-limits because of a spike in injuries and concerns about liabilities, according to the Brockton Enterprise.