Martha's Vineyard Turbine Cables Hearing Ends In Murky Waters

Martha’s Vineyard Commission closed a public hearing on March 21, 2019, on the construction of two undersea electric 220,000-volt cables that would connect the nation’s largest offshore wind farm to mainland Massachusetts. The cables are going to be placed east of Chappaquiddick.

The news media did not inform the public through reports whether the multiple cables off Martha's Vineyard are Alternating Current or Direct Current or if there is a way to provide a smaller environmental footprint with different types of cables.

Just days before the final hearing on Marthas Vineyard a new proposal was announced by a company called Anbaric who filed a request with ISO-New England for a 1200 Megawatt high voltage Direct Current interconnection to a substation in Brayton Point, Massachusetts, that would collect energy produced by future offshore wind projects. The Fall River location appears to be for ocean wind turbines further out to sea.

The Direct Current cables appear to provide the most efficient technology to access all of the lease areas and move energy to shore with the smallest environmental footprint.

Also just prior to the Martha's Vineyard Commission (MVC) hearing a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration based in Gloucester, called the Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office raised concerns that a government environmental impact study about the proposed ocean wind project off Martha's Vineyard lacked sufficient detail.

It's not clear if the Martha's Vineyard Commission had been provided with the March 15 letter by, Michael Pentony, the head of the Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office, who warned that the report on Vineyard Wind completed by the U.S Bureau of Ocean Energy Management in December included conclusions that were not well supported by data and needed additional analysis of several key angles of impact.

Massachusetts had proposed 2000 Megawatts of land-based wind turbines by the year 2020. Because of ommissions in studies over noise measured in decibels and infra-sound, low-frequency noise and shadow flicker the land-based projects became a health fiasco in at least twenty one communities ending around today with only around 120 megawatts of commercial wind.

The Massachusetts courts have shut down two Vestas wind turbines in Falmouth Massachusetts. The Town of Falmouth omitted and continue to keep from the general public a noise warning their turbines to generate 110 decibels of noise.

The public has to be aware that it's not what is in these studies and news media reports but what they omit from the reports.