Interior Secretary Ken Salazar approved the first offshore wind farm in the United States Wednesday, a move that ends a nearly decade-long political battle over installing turbines in the waters just off Cape Cod and could pave the way for significant offshore wind development elsewhere in the nation.

By Juliet Eilperin at Washington Post

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar approved the first offshore wind farm in the United States Wednesday, a move that ends a nearly decade-long political battle over installing turbines in the waters just off Cape Cod and could pave the way for significant offshore wind development elsewhere in the nation.

In approving the Cape Wind project, a 130-turbine wind farm in Massachusetts’s Nantucket Sound that would start operating by the end of 2012 and, Salazar said he would “strike the right balance” between energy development and protecting the area. Some opponents of the project said it endangered the habitat for loons, sea ducks and terns; others decried the visual impact of the turbines as close as five miles from shore.

Cape Wind President Jim Gordon said that the “tragedy” of the ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico underscores the problems associated with traditional energy development.

“It gives the nation pause to reflect on really what are our energy choices, and how are we going to live with them?” Gordon told reporters. “Every energy project has some impact. This was never about a choice between Cape Wind or nothing.”

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