The dog days of summer are apparently seeing the end of NIMBY lawsuits brought by Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard residents; the former seeking to deny us fried clams and soft ice cream and the latter seeking to deny us renewable energy.  You might disagree that Nantucket desperately needs fried clams and ice cream but it is beyond dispute that there are few places in the United States more threatened by climate change than Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard and therefore having a greater interest in both reducing GHG emissions by a speedier transition to renewable energy and expediting climate resilience.

Putting first things first, both the Inquirer and Mirror and the Nantucket Current are reporting that the owner of the building in which Gabriel Frasca's Clam Shack will be housed has made further compromises with the NIMBY who had sued everyone for everything to prevent the Clam Shack from opening. 

The NIMBY owns a former fishing shanty in the middle of a working port next to what was a fish market.  He complained that turning the fish market into a Clam Shack violated the Wetland Protection Act, various Nantucket by-laws and the state law having to do with the granting of a beer and wine license.

According to the Current, what really bothered the NIMBY was the location of the Clam Shack's HVAC equipment and the lack of an awning.  Apparently the building owner has now agreed to move the HVAC equipment and install the awning and then the NIMBY will drop his many lawsuits.

I couldn't be more excited that I might be enjoying fried clams and soft ice cream on Straight Wharf sooner than I might have expected (though not nearly as soon as I should have).  On the other hand there's something very wrong that a NIMBY can use our environmental protection laws, and others, to indefinitely hold up projects that comply with those laws in order to achieve ends unrelated to those laws.

That brings me to Federal District Judge Indira Talwani's order Friday granting summary judgment for the National Marine Fisheries Service and against a part-time Martha's Vineyard resident in one of four lawsuits challenging the Vineyard Wind project which will provide enough renewable energy for 400,000 homes.  Another one of the four lawsuits is currently on appeal after Judge Talwani ruled against the Nantucket Residents Against Turbines also known as ACK Rat.

Today Lieutenant Governor Driscoll is going to attend a celebration of the progress of the construction of the Vineyard Wind progress despite these many NIMBY challenges.   While celebrating these hard fought successes is understandable, we need to do more.

We're not going to get where we need to get in our transition to renewable energy and increased resilience against climate change unless it is easier to get from here to there.  That includes limiting the ability of NIMBYs to misuse our environmental protection laws to delay or defeat renewable energy and resilience projects.  Yes, we should celebrate the ends of these two NIMBY lawsuits but we should also commit to making them harder to bring in the first place.

"Fortunately, we were able to come up with an alternative design that worked for Charlie and Gabriel Frasca's restaurant,” Karp told the Current. “We are very pleased to report that this matter has now been resolved." The relocation of the HVAC equipment was in addition to previous concessions made by Karp and Frasca to Johnson, including the addition of an awning to the restaurant and a permanent barrier between the decks of the two adjacent properties. All of that will also be subject to regulatory approval.