The former home of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in Martha's Vineyard
Credit: Planet Photos
For two decades, some of America’s wealthiest and best known families have mounted a formidable lobbying campaign against plans to build a wind farm off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard.
The multi-million campaign against the project brought about an unlikely union between members of the Kennedy family and William Koch, the billionaire businessman and Republican donor who worried about the impact on their waterfront property views.
But 20 years after the idea was first proposed, Joe Biden is finally set to approve the country’s first large-scale offshore wind farm following the endorsement of a government review.
The proposal by Vineyard Wind would create an 84-turbine wind farm about 12 nautical miles off the coast off the wealthy island of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.
Senator Ted Kennedy, brother of president John F Kennedy, was one of the project's high-profile opponents
Credit: Reuters
The venture, which is being jointly run by two European energy firms, will produce enough electricity to power about 400,000 homes by 2023.
The $2.8 billion project was given the green light in a final environmental review by the US Interior Department on Monday.
Announcing the review, Laura Daniel Davis from the department said: “The demand for offshore wind energy has never been greater.
“The technological advances, falling costs, increased interest and the tremendous economic potential make offshore wind a really promising avenue.”
The project is a key step for Joe Biden’s administration, which has set a goal to double offshore wind capacity by 2030 and net-zero energy emissions in the power sector by 2035.
America’s offshore wind sector lags far behind Europe and largely consists of a five-turbine farm off the coast of Rhode Island.
However, hopes of bringing an offshore wind farm to Massachusetts have stalled for 20 years amid a well-funded and highly organised opposition by wealthy waterfront property owners.
They included the late Ted Kennedy, the former Democratic senator and brother of president John F Kennedy, who died in 2009, and Rachel Lambert Mellon, a prominent heiress and philanthropist, who died in 2014.
The plan was also opposed by Mr Koch, who made his fortune in fossil fuels, and chaired a local residents group which formed in response to the wind energy project.
In a 2013 interview, Mr Koch revealed his strategy to oppose the wind farm was “delay, delay, delay” .
William Koch's strategy was to 'delay, delay, delay'
Credit: AP
By 2017, his residents group, called the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, had spent $40 million (£28.7m) in repeatedly challenging legal rulings that favoured a wind farm proposal.
The row over the wind farm was not limited to wealthy locals whose sea views were threatened — a number of locals including fishermen and Indian tribes have voiced concerns over safety and the impact on the fishing industry.
Having stalled during the Trump administration, the project has now been endorsed by Mr Biden’s government and could receive its final green light from other federal agencies as soon as next month.
However the project is set to be built several miles south of the original plan fought by the Kennedy family, and will not be visible from the family’s six-acre waterfront compound.
To address fishing concerns, the Biden administration has asked for the turbines to be spaced about a mile apart to allow smaller vessels to continue to fish between them.
The move has been hailed by environmentalists. “Not even two months into a new Administration, years of delay have finally culminated in a thorough analysis that should soon put this infrastructure investment on its way to generating clean power for the region and creating good jobs at home,” said Heather Zichal, the chief executive of the American Clean Energy Association.
“By any measure, this is a breakthrough for offshore wind energy in the United States.”
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