Muskeget Channel, Martha's Vineyard Million Volt Electric Highway

The largest wind farm in the world could soon be located miles from Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket.

The big question is how are over a million volts of electricity from future wind farms going to the mainland.

MassDEP is expected to approve two cables carrying up to 440,000 volts through Muskeget Channel creating a submarine superhighway for future wind farms.

On Friday, August 23, 2019 bids were excepted for another up to 800-megawatt wind turbine farm near Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. This Friday, August 30, 2019, public versions will be available of those bids.

The new second wind farm project is proposed 25 miles off the Massachusetts South Coast and 15 miles off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard. The wind farm is marginally visible from the shores of Martha’s Vineyard. The location of the four new ESPs Electric Service Platforms remains unknown and will those be seen from the shoreline remains unknown.

The current new high voltage export cable corridors to shore show a 60-mile corridor to Somerset, Massachusetts and a 48-mile corridor to Falmouth, Massachusetts. That could all change quickly with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection approving two submarine cables carrying 440,000 volts of AC power through Muskeget Channel to Centerville and Covell Beach on Cape Cod.

The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection is highly conflicted when it comes to wind turbine projects as it helped site one of the worst land-based wind turbines projects in the United States in Falmouth, Massachusetts. The MassDEP brokered a 5 million dollar loan called a Project Regulatory Agreement using federal stimulus funds from the ARRA, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

MassDEP through the loan agreement created a substantial and specific danger to public health and/or safety related to the implementation or use of ARRA covered funds. The MassDEP never enforced their own noise regulations against any megawatt wind turbines as a result of brokering the loan. This is called regulatory capture.

The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection is still stuck in Regulatory Capture they financed wind projects ahead of health and safety. The Massachusetts courts shut down the Falmouth town-owned wind turbines in June of 2017.

The first wind farm project on a few miles from Marthas' Vineyard, the cost is projected at $2.8 billion. The 800-megawatt 84 turbine project puts the average cost of each turbine at 33 million each or 3.5 million per megawatt.

The public does not understand the cost of the mammoth ESPs, Electric Service Platforms and electric cables are more expensive than the wind turbines themselves.

Once MassDEP approves the Muskeget Channel 440, 000 volt submarine cable route there is nothing in the way to stop future wind farms creating up to a million volts traveling through the shortest route to the mainland as the electric cables cost more than the wind turbines.

America’s public lands and the environment belong to all of us. MassDEP shouldn't be allowed to give away our natural resources, mammals, historic standings and end the fishing industry for a political agenda. A political agenda that ended with the Massachusetts land based wind turbines in a health and financial fiasco due to the inaction of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection.