News from Massachusetts and a proposed wind farm’s impact upon visual access to Nantucket Sound shows the role of the Federal government in balancing energy needs against the rights of two Native American tribes.
The dynamic of “traditional cultural property” consultation under the National Historic Preservation Act is not new, and often occurs with transportation infrastructure (including locally in the context of environmental review for initial light rail link ten years ago).
Nonetheless, Abby Goodnough’s article below summarizes the dilemma in particularly modern terms for the Obama administration: Should Nantucket Sound be listed on the National Register of Historic Places to honor the cultural traditions of “the people of the first light”? If so, what impact would such listing have on an already controversial Cape Wind project?
