Environmental and labor groups delivered thousands of signed postcards to U.S. Rep. Edward Markey’s office yesterday, urging he and Sen. John Kerry to support Cape Wind. Also, Wendy Williams, author of “Cape Wind: Money, Celebrity, Class, Politics and the Battle for America’s Energy Future on Nantucket Sound,” conducted a reading in Brookline.
BOSTON. A survey released Thursday shows increased public support for the proposed Cape Wind project in Nantucket Sound, but also drew criticism from opponents, calling the figures “misleading.”
The clashes come ahead of the next round of public hearings, slated for next week in Hyannis, Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard and Boston.
Drawing on a favorable Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) released in January by the Minerals Management Service, the project — which would put 130 wind turbines in a 25 square-mile area of the sound — is gaining support statewide, according to numbers released by the Civil Society Institute (CSI).
Of 1,203 state residents polled, 87 percent — including 77 percent on the Cape and Islands — said they “are more likely to support Cape Wind” after learning of the EIS, which labeled 109 of 118 categories of potential impact as “negligible” or “minor.”
Overall, 86 percent said they support the project, up from 84 percent last year and 81 percent in 2006. On the Cape and Islands, support grew from 61 percent in October to 74 percent.
“The clear trend line discredits the notion that there is any sizable public opposition to Cape Wind,” CSI President Pam Solo said.
Opponents have shrugged aside such talk, calling the numbers inconsistent with previous polls and town votes conducted on the Cape and Islands.
Audra Parker, director of strategic planning for Save our Sound, told Metro the survey uses “extreme phrasing that trivializes our position and pushes the results.”
One such question, Parker said, highlights a supposed need for the project to generate “clean, renewable alternative energy” while reducing the opponents’ concerns to aesthetics, recreation and endangered birds.
According to Save our Sound, polls and town votes since 2004 have consistently shown more local residents opposed to the plan than in support of it.
Support has consistently been higher away from the Cape and Islands, Parker said, and Save our Sound expects similar results next week.
“We’re the ones who will bear the brunt of this project,” Parker said of Cape and Islands residents.