Breakthrough: Our Next Moonshot: an Interview with Activist Barbara Hill

Barbara Hill is Executive Director of the grassroots organization Clean Power Now, which is fighting for the first offshore wind energy plant in the U.S. Her organization is championing the construction of Cape Wind, a proposed 130-turbine wind farm in Nantucket Sound. "Break Through" featured the contentious saga of the project's development, a story of elite NIMBYism against grassroots clean energy organizing.

The Minerals Management Service recently concluded that Cape Wind would have no major ecological impact to the surrounding area -- an important milestone in the permitting process, and the beginning of a 60-day comment period on the project. To voice your support for Cape Wind, visit the Clean Power Now website and submit a comment before the March 20 deadline.

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You head Clean Power Now, an organization currently working on increasing support for Cape Wind, an offshore wind farm that would provide 75 percent of the electricity needs to Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket. Why would anybody oppose this?

The only objection is visual. If you're in a boat sailing right next to the turbines then yes, you will see them. But as far as I'm concerned, the visual impacts are minor compared to the benefits we're going to be receiving here locally, and nationally as well.And why should we be lapping off the mountains of Appalachia just so our coal plants can continue to run? Those people don't have any clean water anymore, and the decimating effects of blowing off their mountain tops -- and yet here we are quibbling about ruining our view?

And what are the benefits of Cape Wind, specifically?

In terms of greenhouse gas effect, Cape Wind would be equal to taking 175,000 cars of the road every single year. It's the largest supply side reduction in greenhouse gases ever proposed in the United States.

I can see that Cape Wind will do a lot for the surrounding region, but it's just one wind power plant. How will it benefit the nation as a whole?

What I'm hoping and praying for is that clean energy will be our next moon shot -- like when JFK said that we would reach the moon in ten years, and we did it in nine. We've already got the wind turbines, we need to get the manufacturing here, and we need to get them installed up and down the coast. It's going to take a national commitment.

Going through this tedious, painful process of getting Cape Wind built will open the floodgates to other developers to apply this elsewhere and develop this sustainable resource off our coastlines. The first one is the hardest one but we're going to see a lot more.

"The first one's going to be the hardest" - what do you mean?

In 2001 when Cape Wind was first proposed, an opposition group formed in about five seconds -- the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound. And I live in this community, I know a lot of those people, so I speak very intimately about this. The opposition group has sued the project at numerous points along the way, but they've lost every time.

Is the opposition a grass roots group like Clean Power Now?

They've spent $15 to $20 million to kill the Cape Wind Project. That's their mission -- to kill it. They have a staff of 12 - 15 people, compared to our three. We have a yearly budget that started out around $35,000 and last year reached $300,000. They spend their money on staff, lobbyists, PR, and attorneys. Much of it is skewed, is fear mongering, and in many cases is close to lies.

Where does all that money come from?

Some of them have ties to the fossil fuel industry, to coal mining. Some of them also head up environmental groups. But mostly its backed by business owners who worry that business and tourism will be affected.

Will it?

On the contrary. If anything, Cape Wind will increase tourism -- that's what's happened in the Baltic Sea. And the major documents that have come out of federal and state government have shown that the project would have no serious impact on any of those things.

Does it ever get uncomfortable to have personal acquaintances really angry with you for your work?

I've been in the community for over 20 years now, so I know many of the people who are opposing the project. But there's one individual, Wayne Kirker -- he owns the Hyannis marina -- who I've known him for many years. And when I took this job he called me up and took me out to lunch and told me, "We're friends before and I hope we'll be friends after." I really admire him for doing that. Other people haven't been quite so generous.

Why do you think most people have been so staunch in their belief that Cape Wind will be harmful, even in the face of so much evidence to the contrary?

With the senior senator being very clear that he doesn't want this to happen, that's powerful. Kennedy is powerful. But the politicians who aren't supporting this are not representing the will of the people.

The governor of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick, is a close friend of Democratic nominee hopeful Barak Obama. What's his stance on Cape Wind?

Deval Patrick announced his candidacy while standing next to a wind turbine. We thought that was the end of him, but then he won. We feel very confident that part of his success was due to the fact that he came out very early with his support for the project.

How do you feel about Clean Coal? Is it a viable alternative, given that even a US ban on coal would probably have no effect on China or India?

"Clean Coal" is an oxymoron. There's nothing clean about coal. Look at what's happening in Colombia: there are open pit mines that people are living next door to. Villages that have no clean air anymore. And we import this coal for New England because it's a lower sulfur coal. Coal is so cheap down there because human rights violations are so profound that we can import it up here.

What do you hope to see Breakthrough doing?

I like the fact that they're focusing on young people. We started thinking like this 30 years ago but it got lost in the shuffle. For the old hippies like me, that was part of our generation -- the JFK, the hope, the "ask not ", the Peace Corps -- all of that was part of what I cut my teeth on. I'm older than Michael and Ted, but it's not a generational thing. We're all on the same page with this, and that's incredibly exciting.

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