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Vineyard Town Challenges Vineyard Wind Approval By Massachusetts Environmental Agency

August 27, 2019

The town of Edgartown is challenging the fast-tracked approval by a state agency of cables needed for an offshore wind-turbine project.

The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection issued what the state calls a “superseding order of conditions” earlier this month overturning a decision by the Edgartown Conservation Commission to deny a permit for the cables, which opponents say may jeopardize fishing off the east coast of Martha’s Vineyard.

The cables would require dredging more than 41,000 cubic yards of sediment from the ocean floor, according to The Cape Cod Times.

Vineyard Wind, the company seeking to build 84 turbines in the Atlantic Ocean about 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard, has run into two regulatory problems. One is the Edgartown Conservation Commission’s denial of a permit. The second is the decision by a federal agency to withhold approval indefinitely over uncertainty about the turbines’ effect on fishing.


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