Tribe member challenges sun rite in letter to Salazar :: Cape Wind :: America's First Offshore Wind Farm on Nantucket Sound

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Tribe member challenges sun rite in letter to Salazar
Friday, February 19, 2010
The already twisted Nantucket Sound wind farm saga just got a bit stranger: A Wampanoag tribal member says it is “fabricated cosmology’’ that his tribe performs sun ceremonies that need an unobstructed view of the Sound - as the tribe has claimed in a campaign to halt the energy project off Cape Cod.

But the tribe member made the allegation only after his law firm was recently hired by the developers of the Cape Wind project.

Jeffrey Madison, a Martha’s Vineyard lawyer, wrote in a Feb. 9 letter to US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar that his father and grandfather were both tribe medicine men. “I am stating to you with complete honesty and knowledge that I never participated in, witnessed, or even heard of a sacred spot on the horizon that is relevant to any Aquinnah Wampanoag culture, history or ceremony. Nor did I see, or hear, either my father or grandfather conduct such ceremony,’’ he wrote.

Madison also submitted a petition to Salazar with eight signatures of other Wampanoag tribe members, saying they did not believe the wind turbines would “materially interfere with any significant cultural activity.’’

Note: Click here to read this article in the Boston Globe

Also in Cape Wind in the News:
· Federal Government Opens More Ocean to Wind Projects   (02/03/12)
· Jim Gordon discusses SJC Decision to Uphold Approval of Cape Wind contract   (12/30/11)
· Project Opponents in deep debt   (11/18/11)