The Boston Globe reports that the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, the formidable nonprofit that led the crusade against Cape Wind, the first offshore wind farm, is in financial difficulty.

According to the Globe:

Raising an average of $3.6 million a year in 2003, 2004, and 2005, the organization aired television ads, paid a public relations firm, and staged a $1.5 million lobbying drive to try to persuade Congress to kill the controversial plan, which has become central to a national debate over the future of clean energy.

But last year, after losing the fight in Washington and focusing its attention on a crucial battle before state regulators, the alliance was falling into debt, raising only $1.4 million - a 50 percent drop compared with 2008 and its lowest yearly fund-raising total since 2002, the year the group was founded. By December, according to recently released tax returns, the organization’s balance sheet showed more than $500,000 in red ink.

While officials with the alliance have vowed to fight on, a steady erosion of funds raised by the group over a three-year period beginning in 2007 raises questions about its ability to continue its crusade against a plan by Cape Wind to erect 130 turbines, each 440 feet high, over 24 square miles in Nantucket Sound, with construction expected to begin as early as next year.

Further reading: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/11/26/once_mighty_wind_farm_foe_falls_into_debt/

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pjh/185488411/

KJC