No punches were pulled at a town meeting on wind power.
Jay S. Polachek is managing editor of Public Utilities Fortnightly.
The Constitution of the United States provides for citizens to both gather, and speak freely, without fear of persecution. This vision was in clear practice on April 11, as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers held a town meeting in Barnstable, Massachusetts-the hub of activity and controversy over a proposed offshore wind farm project on Cape Cod.
The sole purpose of this meeting was to gather public comments on an application submitted by Cape Wind Associates to construct a single tower on Horseshoe Shoal in order to gather wind, current, and atmospheric data. From the outset, the moderator of the meeting made it very clear that this meeting was not about the wind farm itself-it was simply to get public opinion on a single structure. However, as is usually the case, emotions ran high, and the focus quickly veered to the wind farm project itself.