[OR_Archaeology] More news regarding the Cape Wind project

[Susan White]

from the Boston Globe newspaper

Historic officer: Cape Wind impact 'unparalleled' on historic sites
By Beth Daley, Globe Staff

BARNSTABLE -- The state's top historic preservation official told a
federal panel today that the impact of the proposed Nantucket Sound wind
farm on Native American and other historic sites was “unparalleled”
in the state’s history.

It was Brona Simon's first public remarks on the Cape Wind project
since issuing a formal opinion in November that Nantucket Sound should
be listed on the National Register of Historic Places because of its
cultural importance to two Indian tribes.

That recommendation, which conflicted with the views of the federal
agency overseeing an environmental review of Cape Wind, created a
controversy that will culminate in a final decision on the project by US
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar next month.

Simon and proponents and opponents of the project testified during a
four-hour hearing before the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation,
a five-member panel advising Salazar. The group will deliver its
recommendations to Salazar no later than April 14. He is not obligated
to follow the council's advice, only to consider it, and he is expected
to make his decision soon after receiving it.

"The magnitude is unparalleled in Massachusetts," Simon, the
Massachusetts Historic Preservation Officer, told the council, noting
that the 130 turbines will cover an area of about 25 square miles.

Simon said the next biggest project her office has ever reviewed was a
highway in Central Massachusetts that encompassed 3.9 square miles. "You
can see the concern we have about the adverse effects of the project,"
she said.

Cape Cod's "maritime setting" is critical to the Wampanoag, she said,
and its likely that Native American archeological sites could be harmed
by anchoring the turbines to the sea floor. Her comments were met with
loud applause from many in the audience of more than 200 people at Cape
Cod Community College.

The Mashpee and Aquinnah Wampanoag tribes say that they need an
unobstructed view of Nantucket Sound to carry out spiritual sun
greetings and that the waterway’s seabed -- which was exposed land
thousands of years ago -- is sacred ancestral land that would be
disturbed by building turbines on it. Yesterday, the Chappaquiddick
Tribe of the Wampanoag Indian Nation also came out against the project.

The Minerals Management Service, the federal agency charged with
issuing a permit for the project, disagreed with Simon's November
opinion, but the National Park Service -- like the MMS, a part of the
Interior Department, agreed, saying the 560-square mile sound was
eligible to be listed on the National Register.

At today's hearing, Eleftherios Pavlides, a professor of archeology at
Roger Williams University in Rhode Island, an expert in historic
preservation, said the wind farm would actually help historic buildings
-- by ensuring pollution from coal-burning plants that contribute to
acid rain would be replaced by wind energy. Acid rain can pit stone
buildings.

Opponents were occasionally loud during the otherwise sedate hearing --
once booing a Cape Wind supporter after she spoke. Many against the
project asked whether the project could be moved to an area south of
Tuckernuck Island off Nantucket.

“The cultural and historic resources will be diminished,'' Roberta
Lane, senior program officer and regional attorney for the National
Trust for Historic Preservation, said in urging that the project be
moved. She said the turbines will be in the setting of historic
properties and "setting is integral to the historic significance of
these places."
She said there would also be direct impact to Native American cultural
sites.

Salazar has indicated he would not entertain moving the project, which
would require Cape Wind Associates, the wind farm developer, to start
over in its already-nine-year quest for permits. The developer has said
it would be technically unfeasible and expensive to put turbines off
Tuckernuck Island. There may also be Native American and other historic
concerns there.

Sarah Cote, an employee of Clean Power Now, a group supporting Cape
Wind, said she had gotten involved with supporting the project while in
high school and said it needed to be built.

“Every place has its own sense of beauty and value," Cote said,
noting that the biggest objections to the wind farm have to do with its
impact on the view from shore. If the project were stopped on that
basis, she said, “it would set a negative precedent.”

Falmouth selectman Ahmed Mustafa, a Cape Wind supporter, said he
trusted the advisory panel to make the right recommendation. "As you
know, the whole earth is historic,'' he said.