Regulators approve first offshore wind farm in US

With Gov Deval Patrick standing beside him,Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced at a news conference at the Massachusetts Statehouse that the government had approved a permit for Cape Wind Associates,a private venture,to build the farm.

“I am approving the Cape Wind project,” Salazar said. “This will be the first of many projects up and down the Atlantic coast.”

The Cape Wind turbines would lie in Nantucket Sound,about five miles from the nearest shoreline,and cover 24 square miles,roughly the size of Manhattan. The tip of the highest blade of each turbine would reach 440 feet above the water.

But the project is hardly shovel ready. Several regulatory hurdles remain,and opponents of the wind farm have vowed to go to court,potentially stalling Cape Wind for several more years.

For years the Cape Wind project has been the focus of pitched battles splitting politicians and environmental groups.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts,who died last year,had opposed the project,saying it was a giveaway to a private developer.

Supporters say the $1 billion Cape Wind project would provide a clean,renewable source of energy that could meet up to 75 percent of the power needs on Cape Cod,Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. They also say it would provide hundreds of construction jobs,decrease the region’s reliance on fossil fuels and benefit the environment by lowering emissions of greenhouse gases.