The Massachusetts Military Reservation needs power for its groundwater treatment plants, so Air Force and Army officials are working on getting up to seven wind turbines installed in the next two years, reports the Cape Cod Times. The reservation includes Otis Air National Guard Base, and USAF has participated for a number of years with the Army in environmental clean up actions. Cleaning contaminated groundwater with electricity generated by fossil-fuel burning plants creates its own environmental problems. Using the turbines would cut greenhouse gas emissions. The Air Force is under contract to build a 398-foot, 1,500-kilowatt turbine, which USAF officials expect will reduce the quantity of electricity they need to buy from fuel-burning power plants by 30 percent. The turbine will cost $4.6 million and is supposed to be complete by 2009.
A three-month continuing resolution that ended in December inflicted less pain on the Department of the Air Force than it had expected, as procurement and construction continue in the new year. The federal government operated under a stopgap spending measure that stretched from the beginning of the fiscal year on…