In the spring of 1999, a private developer, Cape Wind Associates, announced their plan to build the first offshore wind farm in the United States on Horseshoe Shoal in Nantucket Sound. Since then, the project has easily become one of the most aggressively contested regional engineering works in recent decades, with residents of Cape Cod and the Islands remaining sharply divided on the issue of a wind farm located in their backyard. As one of the most treasured areas of outstanding natural beauty, Nantucket Sound remains a local, state, and federally protected cultural landscape. However, with Horseshoe Shoal located more than three miles offshore, and out of state water jurisdiction, the wind farm project is subject only to federal review and legislation. As of January 2005, the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the proposed wind farm was still in the lengthy process of review by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Cape Wind Associates, in collaboration with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, has designed a grid formation for a 130-turbine wind park located across approximately two miles of Horseshoe Shoal. The design for the offshore park has been primarily determined by engineering guidelines, maximum energy output requirements, economic feasibility studies, and site-specific environmental attributes. To date, there is no proposal for an onshore landscape park, visitor center, or any type of interpretive component designated to engage the public with the proposed wind farm.