May 9, 2013 — After a few phone calls, it became clear that the fishing industry approves of the project but has mixed feelings about the wind turbines that it will produce. Those turbines are headed for the ocean, and that happens to be where the fish are.
That was one impressive crowd of suits at Monday's ground-breaking for the new South Terminal in New Bedford.
There were about 300 people there, 50 percent of them in black suits. We haven't seen that many big shots in one place in a long time, testament to the excitement that has built up around this project.
Truly, for once the city is going to be at the cutting edge of a new technology, wind power. A wind turbine assembly facility on 28 acres, in addition to cargo container handling, is going to make a big splash in the local economy and a profound change to the harbor.
Mayor Jon Mitchell is throwing everything he's got at getting this done, and good for him. A weeklong visit to wind farms in Germany and Denmark was a pretty bold statement.
Yet I don't think the project's supporters see this as a panacea, which is one of the usual gripes people have about New Bedford. Oh, commuter rail. That will solve everything, right? Oh, an Oceanarium. A cure-all for sure. Casino? One-yard line!
But we never got the Oceanarium, so we can't know what good it would have done. And we still haven't got commuter rail, so the same goes for that. Casino? After 20 years it still doesn't exist.
But look at the things we did get. The national park. The UMass Dartmouth downtown campus. The UMass Dartmouth marine campus. None of them solved everything, but which ones would anybody like to give up?
These projects, if anything, exceeded expectations. With the money and permits in hand, nothing now stands in the way of the South Terminal. The governor wants it finished in a year and a half, which ought to be quite the trick for a government that takes 11 years to half-fix the Braga Bridge but, hey, it's a goal.
So everyone is excited, yes? Maybe not. We noticed that there were very few people from the fishing industry in the gathering, and none among the speakers.
Read the full opinion piece at the New Bedford Standard-Times