Cape Wind Abandons 130-Turbine Nantucket Sound Array

MARTHA'S VINEYARD, MA — Cape Wind, the ambitious plan to construct more than 100 wind turbines measuring more than 400 feet tall in Nantucket Sound, has been abandoned. Cape Wind Associates this week gave up its federal lease for about 50 square miles off Cape Cod, according to the Associated Press.

Cape Wind has been in the works since 2001. It was expected to be the country's first offshore wind farm — that designation went to Deepwater Wind's farm off Block Island in Rhode Island. That array went online in 2016.

Cape Wind's opponents were diverse, ranging from fishermen to — ironically — environmental advocates.

The project was a "massive private development that would have ruined the national treasure that is Nantucket Sound," said Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound President Audra Parker in a statement. She added the group will "make certain that never again is a private developer given the rights to land that belongs to all of us."

Photo: Deepwater Wind turbines near Block Island, Rhode Island, in 2016. The array is the first offshore wind farm in the United States — a designation once tied to the now-abandoned Cape Wind project. (Credit: Michael Dwyer/Associated Press)