Cape Wind officials on Tuesday labeled “frivolous” an appeal filed by the Nantucket Sound wind-farm opponents who say federal regulators should redo their air permit review because basic information about the project has changed since its original application, State House News reported.
“This is just another frivolous appeal by an opposition group that is funded by fossil-fuel interests to try to delay the new jobs, cleaner air, and greater energy independence that Cape Wind will bring,” Mark Rodgers, communications director at Cape Wind, said in a statement responding to the appeal filed by the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound and the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head/Aquinnah.
The groups on Monday appealed the Environmental Protection Agency’s Jan. 7 approval of an Outer Continental Shelf Air Permit, citing Cape Wind’s relocation of its construction and staging base from Quonset, Rhode Island to New Bedford, as well as “inaccurate and erroneous data” in Cape Wind’s original permit application. Claiming the project’s air permit is based on Mineral Management Service findings that are no longer pertinent due to project changes, the groups said their appeal “automatically halts the permit which is necessary for the project to move forward.”
Said Audra Parker, president and CEO of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound: “Cape Wind can’t change something as basic as its staging area without going back and addressing that as part of its permit. Additionally, this points to the types of gaping inaccuracies and contradictions that the permit and this entire project are riddled with.”
