RutlandHerald.com - We Are Vermont

Wind 'farm' a bad idea



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Published: July 2, 2009

This letter is written in response to the June 22 editorial entitled "Airing differences." This editorial overtly criticizes regional elected officials for not supporting wind energy efforts in western Rutland County.

As state representative for Clarendon, southern Ira, Proctor and West Rutland, I've thought long and hard about the pros and cons of wind energy development by Noble (north of Route 4) and Vermont Community Wind Farm (south of Route 4). The smaller, more remote Noble project, running along the Hanley Mountain-Grandpa's Knob ridgeline, moved forward quite uneventfully the past few years until recent financial problems surfaced for the company. The future of this project remains uncertain. Accepting that benefits exist from alternative energy production, and not hearing any local opposition, I've supported this project to date.

The Vermont Community Wind Farm Project is quite another story. The town of Ira is enveloped by this massive proposal, even after some recent scaling back by the developer. Opposition in Iraq and west Clarendon to this project is extensive, vocal, persistent and persuasive. This is a huge industrial undertaking being thrust upon areas primarily zoned residential/ agricultural.

I heard one vocal opponent charge that wind "farm" is a misnomer; it should be called a wind "factory." I agree. Folks didn't move to Ira and Chippenhook for the "moving wind turbine experience" or to do their part for the "alternative energy revolution." They settled here because they value peace, quiet, solitude, wildlife, and scenery. All of this comes under direct threat with the location of the proposed Vermont Community Wind "Farm" project into their backyards.

The scars, temporary or permanent, on the landscape created by construction of enormous 450-foot-tall whirling Bennington Battle Monuments are far from negligible. Clear-cut swaths carved into mountainside slopes necessary to provide for straight 35-foot-wide access roads, new high-voltage transmission lines, and flat footings for huge turbine platforms on contoured mountain peaks can't be simply brushed aside as temporary. Beyond implications to scenery, troubling questions remain about impacts on human health and wildlife from noise, lighting, and shadow effect from blade movement. You can bet all this will not enhance property values.

The long and growing list of opponents comes from all walks of life. Your editorial characterization of opponents as all living in nice houses with grand views and open checkbooks available for desperate politicians is untrue, and quite frankly personally insulting. My campaign finance information, along with other Rutland county political representatives, is public information and open to anyone's inspection. It is my job to represent the majority interests of the rural areas being so dramatically impacted, editorialized NIMBY and politician labels notwithstanding.

The Vermont Community Wind "Farm" is a bad idea for this already settled, beautiful, unique spot on Earth. Let's hope the developers, Herald editor, and other regional politicians come to this same conclusion and soon.

Rep. DAVE POTTER

North Clarendon








READER COMMENTS


Dave Potter: "It is my job to represent the majority interests of the rural areas being so dramatically impacted"

Don't make me laugh as you pick our pocket's!

The above statement did not apply when you voted for all the taxes this year. How many calls (e-mail etc.) did you get to vote Yes for taxation v.s. those who called and said vote NO?

Lets try again Dave and see if you really believe "It is my job to represent the majority interests".

You could have been a leader on NO NEW Taxes but you just followed the party line. Your vote is your answer.
-- Posted by M Mobae on Sat, Jul 4, 2009, 12:58 pm EST

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AnnJuliet your absoluetly right our decreased standard of living is due to George Walker Bush and a lot of extra credit goes to Sarah Palin..even though she is sweet. I was stuck in traffic for 2 minutes yesterday by Diamondrun Mall and I knew it was Bush's fault in my heart of hearts. Driving home I spotted roadkill on N. Main Street again and I'm sure GWB was behind the senseless violence. Maybe you can organize a bustrip to Dallas/Crawford and set up a protest..After all you need to do something with all that pent-up anger now don't you?
-- Posted by Bradford Broyles on Sat, Jul 4, 2009, 8:09 am EST

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Vermont! We were green before being gree--

Oh, never mind.
-- Posted by mark on Sat, Jul 4, 2009, 1:24 am EST

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Is this the same Dave Potter that voted for the Renewable Energy Bill and wants Vermont Yankee shut down. This is getting laughable. First we want to shut down VY then we want to make sure no windmills get built. So Dave believes in renewable power and voted that he believed in renewable power but then works to shut down renewable power. Mr. Potter what did you think would happen when you signed the Renewable Energy Bill? Common sense would tell you that they would try to build renewable energy projects. Whats even funnier is that you say you are working for your constituents. I will bet that your constituents did not want you to vote for a Renewable Energy Bill and then vote against a Renewable Energy Project. I will bet your constituents did not want you to vote for every tax hike known to man but you did that too. I don't think wind will work in Vermont. But the Legislature does. No one wants wind in their backyard but the Legislature is promoting it anyway. Then the individual Legislator like Mr Potter comes out against it after he voted for it. Laughable.
-- Posted by Jim Eckhardt on Fri, Jul 3, 2009, 1:09 pm EST

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Does the Rutland Herald have spell check or a proof reader? Mr. Potter represents Southern IRA, not IRAQ. I am certain he did not get in wrong in his letter to the editor.

None none...why do you think T Boone, a Billionaire, is interested in wind power? For the good of all of us? I think not! He's in it for the money, plain and simple.

I agree as most that we need alternative forms of energy, but these "wind farms" are not safe. Not safe for us, the wildlife or for our CHILDREN. Don't we owe it to them to investigate the effects of such large structures that omit vibrations in the ground, noise like that of an on coming airplane and light flicker. They have proven to have negative health effects around the globe in such a large scale. I would be more than happy to support such new technology, even within a one mile radius of my own home, as in this situation would be the case, if I was 100% sure it is safe. I am not willing to risk my children's health so someone can get cheap electricity (which would not be me) or get paid off by the VCWF (again, not me).

I think we all need to step back and learn the facts about wind power. www.wind-watch.org, www.windturbinesyndrome.com, www.peoplestaskforce.org, www.betterplan.squarespace.com and the list could go on and on....

By the way, didn't Jeff Wennberg also support Vicon...and we all know how that ended up!
-- Posted by CC None on Fri, Jul 3, 2009, 12:34 pm EST

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Freehold,
You act as if the choice is between wind power and coal. Do your homework. There will be the same number of coal plants no matter how many turbines you sprawl across the countryside. No coal plant has been decommissioned because of wind power anywhere in the world. Wind cannot replace base load generation. The generation capacity of the grid must be built as if wind generation does not exist, because 75% of the time, it doesn't.

It costs over $100 per MW to produce and transmit electricity with mountain top wind turbines in remote locations far from the population centers where the electricity needs to be delivered (for instance in Vermont). Compare that to the current cost of $35 per MW in the day ahead ISO market. The difference is made up in subsidies and beneficial tax treatment that essentially transfer wealth from taxpayers and ratepayers to the wind industry.

Many studies have shown that money spent on conservation and efficiency will push back the fossil fuel horizon much further than an equal expenditure on wind power. We should be spending the bulk of our finite resources where they will accomplish the most good. Wind power does not benefit society. It only makes electricity more expensive. Very few jobs are created, view sheds and wildlife habitat are destroyed, people are made miserable - and for what?

Wind power is a very expensive solution in need of a problem. Conservation and efficiency programs are highly cost effective solutions to the very real problems of over-reliance on foreign oil and the ever increasing costs of extraction of fossil fuels of all types.

I advocate research and development into all forms of energy production, including ocean energy and offshore wind power. 95% of New England's wind resource lies offshore. Turbines located 20 miles out to sea are beyond the horizon, yet the transmission line required to get the electricity to the populated seaboard area is very short. In 15 years or so, the cost of offshore wind may be competitive with other forms of generation.

In the meantime we can do a tremendous amount of work on the existing building stock in this country. Not just homes, but industrial and commercial buildings. Heat recovery processes, new highly efficient heating and lighting equipment. The amount of energy that could be conserved with an expenditure equal to what is planned for wind power is perhaps 10 times the value of the electricity that wind turbines will produce.

This is not a nimby issue. It is common sense.
-- Posted by Stephen Thurston on Fri, Jul 3, 2009, 11:39 am EST

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Apparently S. Thurston feels that he would rather have a coal-fired power plant down in the valleys rather than wind-turbines up on the ridges. Cramming more insulation into old houses will only take us so far. Of course, he'd prefer that coal-fired plant to be in someone else's valley, someone else's state. Classic NIMBY.

Any one can cherry-pick disadvantages of living near technology. The issue is what form do we choose as we carry our fair share of those disadvantages, not whether we shoulder any of it at all. Wind turbines make sense for an eco-hypersensitive state like Vermont.
-- Posted by Freehold-06 on Fri, Jul 3, 2009, 9:32 am EST

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People,
We are facing a wall regarding energy. Many are criticizing wind power but very few are offering any alternatives.
Try that.
-- Posted by steve Nunya on Fri, Jul 3, 2009, 8:29 am EST

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The biggest problem with grid scale wind power, and grid scale solar for that matter, is that the subsidies being poured into these massive deployments of intermittent and unreliable generation should be going instead to fund conservation and efficiency programs, which are essentially unfunded compared to the massive amount of tax dollars being targeted for renewables. Using Maine as an example, the legislature approved a plan calling for 2700 MW of installed capacity by 2020. At a cost of $2 million per MW (Per's number not mine) for mountain top wind farms it will cost $5.4 billion plus $1.5 billion for transmission lines, or $6.9 billion. The ISO uses a 25% capacity factor for forward capacity payments to wind generators so 2700 MW will actually generate about 675 MW. The ISO grid operates at an average demand of about 15,000 MW. 675 MW is 4.5% of the average grid demand. How much impact on fossil fuel consumption or GHG emissions can be expected for less than 5% of generation. To achieve 2700 MW of installed capacity will require between 1100 and 1800 turbines on about 200 miles of Maine's pristine and ecologically fragile western mountain ridges. If the tax dollars being used to subsidize wind were instead directed to conservation and efficiency programs each household in Maine would see about $15,000 dollars for insulation, better window, heating system improvements and more fuel efficient vehicles. Massive savings in foreign oil used for home heating would be achieved. The construction industry would be put back to work. Instead Maine is budgeting about $15 per household for weatherization programs this year. Wind power is a scam being perpetrated on a misinformed public by a well heeled industry which includes some of the biggest corporations on earth, companies like GE, with over 150 lobbyists in Washington, pushing for Cap and Trade legislation and more subsidies.
-- Posted by Stephen Thurston on Fri, Jul 3, 2009, 7:59 am EST

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If the wind industry and their noise consultants were truthful about low frequency "blade thump" wind turbines would not be proposed for New England mountain ridges with homes in the quiet valleys below. Blade thump is associated with sleep deprivation, migraines, vertigo, sensations of thumping in the chest - all part of a cluster of symptoms known as Wind Turbine Syndrome. Wind turbines emit over 90 decibels of low frequency noise caused by the 8 ton, 150' blades ripping though the air at tip speeds approaching 200 mph. These low frequency pulses travel long distances, like thunder. When all is still at night in the rural valleys the wind will be sufficient on the ridge to operate the turbines. Nighttime sound levels in the 20 decibel range are interrupted by blade thump 20-30 decibels louder. To put this in perspective the World Health Organization recommends no more than a 3 decibel increase above background levels at night for undisturbed sleep.
-- Posted by Stephen Thurston on Fri, Jul 3, 2009, 6:19 am EST

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Fine.

Modern civilized life-styles require compromises to co-exist with the technologies that support them. It is fundamentally unfair for Vermont to benefit when other states carry the burdons of refineries, pipelines, strip mines, steel mills, coke ovens, ... you get the picture.

All those modern-day settlers wanting "peace, quiet, solitude, wildlife and scenery" should get it. They shoul have their powerlines disconnected and gas or heating oil deliveries banned. If they want to live like they were in the 1700's, they should get it. Good and hard. They can harvest their firewood with axes and bow saws. No more paving roads. No more refrigerators, grocery stores, or fresh perishables trucked in during the winter. Modern medicine, based on pharmacuetical plants and nuclear medicine? Hah!

If Vermonters want the good things that come with civilization, then they need to shoulder thier fair share of the down side of it. Wind turbines, even big ones, are not so terrible a burden. Otherwise, the rest of New England would be well within their rights to cut us off the grid.

Anything less is total hypocrisy, Representative Potter.
-- Posted by Freehold-06 on Thu, Jul 2, 2009, 5:35 pm EST

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Thomas Pickens is a natural gas man now. He is promoting wind for 2 reasons. 1) Building wind plants means also building an equal amount of gas plants to back them up. 2) He hopes to piggyback a water pipeline on the transmission corridor obtained by eminent domain to drain the aquifer under his lands in northern Texas to sell to Houston.

By the way, we had wind power in 1845.
-- Posted by Eric Rosenbloom on Thu, Jul 2, 2009, 10:22 am EST

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You are the state representative for southern iraq? What do you do send maple syrup? Give me a break just because you represent something doesnt mean you know anything about wind technology...

One of the biggest oil man in the world T Boone Pickens is dumping billions into this technology because he knows where it is going....

You speak of nothing you know about, why dont you stick to sending maple syrup over to southern iraq

Vermont unique hah that is a laugh, the only thing unique about it, is you ancient fossils who are afraid of change and still think its 1845, why dont you drive around in a buggy while you are at it.


If this guy is a representative I'm flabbergasted at his narrow minded short comings.
-- Posted by None None on Thu, Jul 2, 2009, 7:54 am EST

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