USA - Wind power project on Nantucket Sound creates split in the environmentalist community

When it comes to Cape Wind Associates' plan to create a 130-turbine wind farm on Nantucket Sound, environmentalists not only disagree, some can't even agree about whether there's disagreement. ‘There's definitely a split," says Peter Schlesinger, a member of Clean Power Now, a Cape pro-wind farm group. "I normally contribute to several environmental organizations on Cape Cod, but I've stopped. APCC [The Association to Preserve Cape Cod], for example, appears to be in the camp that's against the wind farm. So in the a last couple of years I've stopped contributing to them." Dan Morast, president of the Cape-based International Wildlife Coalition and a supporter of the anti-wind farm group The Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, sees the split somewhat differently.

"The [environmental] activists on the Cape are pretty well aligned," Morast says. "It is the off-Cape environmental groups and conservation groups who jumped on the [Cape Wind] bandwagon. And they've done a very poor job of reaching out to us, not the least of which is Greenpeace." Chris Miller, climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace, says calling that a split is inaccurate. He says the major players in the environmental movement are all on the same page. "There is really not a split in the environmental community around this proposal," Miller says. "If you look at the list of environmental groups that are supporting the Cape Wind project, it is a broad coalition of environmental groups." Barbara Birdsey, an environmental activist, who is on the board of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, suggests that a split exists within the very organizations that Miller sees as part of a united front. "It seems to come down to those people working on renewable [energy] as their main focus versus those that are working with wildlife protection programs."