U.S.: Greenpeace Misleads on Cape Wind

Greenpeace Misleads on Cape Wind
Hyannis, MA - 08/24/2007
[press release from Save our Sound]

Media campaign falsely declares Cape Wind has cleared hurdles.
The international environmental group Greenpeace has embarked on a television and media campaign attacking opponents of Cape Wind that is replete with errors and misstatements while it promotes a project it falsely claims has “been certified as having no significant impact on the marine environment, navigational safety and shipping lanes.”

In a television ad now being broadcast on local stations, the Greenpeace ad singles out Senator Edward M. Kennedy and Congressman William Delahunt for criticism for their role in challenging the appropriateness of Cape Wind’s chosen location in Nantucket Sound.

In claiming widespread support for Cape Wind, Greenpeace ignores the widespread local opposition to the project on the basis of economic, environmental and public safety risks inherent in the project. Moreover, the campaign propagates a series of blatantly false statements:
• Greenpeace asserts that Cape Wind has cleared regulatory hurdles for endangerment of the marine environment and public safety. Those issues remain undetermined and won’t be settled for a year or longer while the federal Minerals Management Service undergoes its review.
• Cape Wind has not “passed the Commonwealth’s environmental impact review,” as Greenpeace claims in a statement to media, but has simply satisfied the state that the information it submitted was “adequate” to begin the state permitting process. Cape Wind still needs state agency approvals from the Department of Environmental Protection, Coastal Zone Management, the MA Highway Department, MA Historical Commission and others.
• Greenpeace also falsely describes Cape Wind as having “passed the Army Corps review” when the Corps (no longer the lead agency in the process) produced a draft environmental report that was heavily criticized by numerous federal and state agencies, including the US Environmental Protection Agency, which gave the review its worst possible rating of “inadequate.” Because the lead agency was changed to the Department of Interior in 2005, no final determination was produced by the Army Corps of Engineers.

The Greenpeace statement also turns a blind eye to Cape Wind Associates’ ongoing effort to build a diesel electricity plant in the city of Chelsea, MA which is being fiercely opposed by residents and city officials there. While silent on Cape Wind’s pursuit of a fossil fuel plant, Greenpeace praises the developer for helping to lead the “fight for independence from dirty and dangerous energy.”

Even before Greenpeace appeared on TV with its ads, the Massachusetts Fishermen’s Partnership, in collaboration with the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, began airing ads last week opposing the Cape Wind project and the damage it will do to the fishery and to the economic well being of fishermen. The fishermen’s ad also disproves Greenpeace’s persistent charge that opponents of Cape Wind are but a “wealthy few” when the project is in fact opposed by a variety of stakeholders and a majority of Cape and Islands residents.

Several polls of the Cape and Islands, collectively surveying over 1700 residents, have shown that Cape and Island residents, on balance, oppose Cape Wind. More importantly, towns that have voted on the issue have clearly shown that a large majority of their residents are opposed to the Cape Wind project. In separate non-binding referendums, the towns of Mashpee and Nantucket voted against the Cape Wind project by a two-thirds margin.