September 2, 2006
Vermont
Vermont
By Candace Page
Free Press Staff Writer
The Vermont Public Service Board has confirmed its rejection of a commercial wind farm atop East Mountain in the Northeast Kingdom.
Developer Mathew Rubin said he would not appeal to the Vermont Supreme Court.
“We’ve made the decision to take no further activity on the project until the state policy on wind power changes,” he said.
In an order dated Thursday, the utility-regulating board reaffirmed that East Haven Windfarm had failed to provide sufficient evidence that four turbines would not harm bird and bat populations.
The board also repeated its belief that wind generation projects can bring substantial benefits.
East Haven Windfarm had proposed to erect four 200-foot-tall wind turbines at an abandoned mountaintop radar base in East Haven.
Rubin said he will not sell the 17 acres he owns on the mountaintop.
He said he also will wait before he erects two wind-measurement towers to test the feasibility of generation on two peaks near East Mountain. Those testing towers have been approved by the Public Service Board.
What he sees as state opposition to wind development will change, he said, “because of global warming and because other than wind power there is no way to generate a reasonable amount of Vermont’s electricity,” he said.
Gov. Jim Douglas has said he opposes most commercial-scale wind development on mountaintops, but he supported Rubin’s East Mountain proposal as a demonstration project.
The Public Service Board is a three-person board appointed by the governor.
Contact Candace Page at 660-1865 or cpage@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2006/09/02/northeast-kingdom-wind-farm-project-rejected-again/