Opponents of a proposed wind farm in Nantucket Sound off Massachusetts are suing the Coast Guard in federal court, saying the agency failed to respond to a request for public records as required by law.
The Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound filed suit July 8 in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., making it the latest legal action against federal officials and agencies connected to the approval of Cape Wind, according to the Cape Cod (Mass.) Times.
“We have filed [Freedom of Information Act] requests with numerous federal agencies that are defendants in many of the lawsuits that are being filed,” the group’s president, Audra Parker, told the Cape Cod Times. “The Coast Guard is the only federal agency that hasn’t provided documents. This is well over two years ago.”
In the complaint, lawyers for the group lay out a timeline dating from March 29, 2011, when the organization filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Coast Guard. It was seeking communications between the agency and Cape Wind; any other state or federal agency responsible for authorizing the project; consultants; Hy-Line Cruises officials; state Sen. Dan Wolf, D-Harwich; former state Rep. Demetrius Atsalis, D-Barnstable; and U.S. Rep. William Keating, D-Mass. The request asks for documents dating from April 28, 2010, when the U.S. Interior Department approved the project.
Mark Rodgers, a spokesman for Cape Wind, called the group’s most recent lawsuit a “desperate publicity stunt.”
“The opposition group is still referring to a decade-long review as ‘rushed,’ ” Rodgers said in an email to the Times. “They have no credibility.”
Click here for the full report.
