Earth Equity News

Cape Wind Project Faces Another Delay, This Time Over Indian Sites. By Evan Lehmann, ClimateWire, October 5, 2009. "Final approval for Cape Wind is stalled…over American Indian ceremonies - [that] could jeopardize other ocean-based energy proposals. The 130-turbine project appeared to be sailing toward federal consent after the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service issued a supportive environmental report in January, about eight years after the pioneering project was announced. A decision could have come 30 days later… Cape Wind Associates, the Boston-based group pursuing the project, expected to receive the nation's first seafloor lease months ago. Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act is causing the setback… [There are] reams of existing research, including the government's 800-page final environmental impact statement, [that] have established that the facility's clean power benefits outweigh its negative impacts…Two Indian tribes, however, say Section 106… protects artifacts and areas where cultural ceremonies are practiced. Turbines would disrupt sacred sunrise and burial sites. The Wampanoag tribes, or the 'People of First Light,' say sprawling Nantucket Sound -- hundreds of square miles of ocean -- must provide an unobstructed view of the rising sun in order for the tribes to continue ceremonies that are centuries old. They want the federal government to designate the sound as a 'traditional cultural property' and prohibit the project from being built there."