Time for a group of Nantucket residents to stop tilting at windmills off their coast, court says

A federal appeals court yesterday tossed a lawsuit by a group of Nantucket residents who say the wind turbines now being built off their island will kill endangered right whales.

In its ruling, the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit concluded that federal officials did so properly consider the impact of the wind farm on migrating right whales to come to a conclusion that the turbines and their bases likely pose no threat to the whales:

[National Marine Fisheries Service] and [Bureau of Ocean Energy Management] followed the law in analyzing the right whale's current status and environmental baseline, the likely effects of the Vineyard Wind project on the right whale, and the efficacy of measures to mitigate those effects. Moreover, the agencies' analyses rationally support their conclusion that Vineyard Wind will not likely jeopardize the continued existence of the right whale.

The suit, one of several filed against the wind project, so far unsuccessfully, was filed by a group that once called itself Ack Rats but which changed its name to Nantucket Residents Against Wind Turbines. The court's ruling came on the group's appeal of a lower-court decision to sink their suit.