Let's Get Real

To the editor: It seems several years ago Vineyard Wind and the town’s lawyers, Cultural Heritage Partners, successfully convinced our Select Board that an Aircraft Detection Lighting System (ADLS) for the turbines would enable Nantucket to maintain its “Dark Skies”, even with a full-blown power plant constructed off our shores. ADLS is, even now, being celebrated as the panacea for what appears to be our offshore airport.

The truth of the matter is, that as long as we have any portion of the eventual 1,300 square mile power plant right off our shores, we will never look out and see just darkness again. Never.

What no one is making clear is that there will always be vessel lighting on those turbines. There will also be decades of construction and permanent maintenance – all of which requires constant lighting - on the Vineyard Wind project and the many other projects that are coming our way next.

Let’s get real. Unless these projects are stopped, our dark skies are gone forever.

But there is more. It seems that all of this is nothing more than a distraction from the big issue that is not being properly addressed: the blade explosion. And, more importantly, the future blade explosions with which Nantucket and its residents and business owners are going to have to contend going forward.

The Vineyard Wind project is the canary in the coal mine. The endless lighting, the environmental and economic fallout from all aspects of the project, and the likely even higher electricity rates are not what we bargained for. This is all just so much worse.

We need to collectively demand that Nantucket stops negotiating with this developer directly. It’s time for the Select Board to walk away from the “Good” Neighbor Agreement, because if these are “good” neighbors? I’d hate to see what bad ones look like.

Amy DiSibio

DiSibio is a board member of the group ACK For Whales, which opposes the development of offshore wind projects off Nantucket.