August 16, 2007

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Statement of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound
RE: Civil Society Institute Survey on Cape Wind

The survey is marred by a small local sample size and a biased approach, and it does not accurately reflect the views of Cape and Islands residents. Merely 61 local residents were included in the survey, which mentioned just a few of the significant negative impacts presented by the proposed Cape Wind project.

Previous polls of the Cape and Islands on the project have shown that Cape and Island residents, on balance, oppose Cape Wind. More importantly, towns that have voted on the issue have clearly shown that a large majority of their residents are opposed to the Cape Wind project. In separate non-binding referendums, the towns of Mashpee and Nantucket voted against the Cape Wind project by a two-thirds margin.

Disregarding the diverse and plentiful objections of Cape and Islands communities, the current poll reduced the concerns of project opponents to view, recreational sailing and other navigation, and bird kill. The poll failed to give respondents an opportunity to consider legitimate issues of concern that remain unresolved. For example, respondents’ opinions about Cape Wind might change if they were told the following:

• Massachusetts commercial fishermen oppose the project because it would be built on one of their most productive fishing grounds and would likely lead to a partial closure to fishermen.

• The cost of the project, at over $1 billion, is rising still and could affect the actual cost charged to consumers for electricity.

• The regional airports and ferry lines oppose the project because of concerns for passenger safety.
  

• There are alternative sites in deeper waters that would resolve most conflicts affecting navigational safety, the tourism economy on Cape Cod and the Islands, and the visual destruction of the Nantucket Sound horizon.
  

If the Civil Society Institute and their associates at Clean Power Now are truly interested in a civil debate over the Cape Wind project, they should have insisted on a balanced poll, not one where the outcome is stale and wholly predictable.

A society without honest discourse is not a civil society.

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