Cape Wind Projects Costs Plenty in PR Dollars

This piece from the Boston Globe entitled
On Wind, Some Blow Hot and Cold
Stephanie Ebbert, (6/17/2003) reports on the continuing controversy over the Cape Wind project, with many groups which ordinarily support development of "clean energy" opposing the project as inappropriate for the Cape. Because project developers and their well organized opponents are well funded, plenty of dollars have gone to PR agencies to advocate their respective positions:

As a belated summer season gets underway, both the opponents and proponents are trying to capture public opinion by flooding TV and radio airwaves. Cape Wind is running up to $90,000 worth of 60-second radio ads in which ''Bob'' and ''Honey'' deride fossil fuels as the real threat to the Cape's beaches. Those fictitious characters have to compete with Cronkite, who lends his considerable credibility to the Alliance's TV and radio ads.

The Alliance estimates it has already spent $100,000 on ads. Cape Wind places its media buys at about $200,000, out of the $10 million it has already spent on the project's engineering, planning, and data tower construction. Both sides have paid more money to hard-driving public relations firms and lobbyists.

It is unfortunate that the $300,000 spent on publicity could not have been channelled to other purposes, such as studies of project impacts or potential mitigation for the alleged adverse impacts.