April 10, 2011
Opinions, Vermont

Is large scale wind worth it?

Written by Deborah Caldbeck, www.burlingtonfreepress.com 10 April 2011Written by Deborah Caldbeck, www.burlingtonfreepress.com 10 April 2011

It may very well be too late. Those who have voted have voted to approve wind power in Lowell. I am a native Vermonter from the Northeast Kingdom, my father before me and his father before him. I would invite those who support wind power in Vermont to spend a night on Lake Champlain. There in the night sky amidst a billion stars and planets one’s reverie is rudely interrupted by a number of eerie, intermittently blinking, red lights from the wind towers from the Ellensburg wind “farm” in Clinton County, N.Y.

A communion with the wonders of nature violently broken by another reminder of man’s inhumanity to nature and a reminder to me of a chance encounter with that very wind “farm” a couple of years ago.

A friend and I were traveling the roads of Clinton County when suddenly amidst the tree-filled wilderness there arose gigantic wind turbines, a wind “farm.” Turbines not moving, an eerie, frightening, barren wasteland accentuated by the complete silence, no wind, no movement, no birds singing, no longer sanctuary for man or animals. A jolting reminder that all is not well with the world and now Vermont and its splendor, too, is soon to become merely a memory.

I say that there cannot be a fair vote for or against wind power in Vermont unless each voter and wind power advocate has visited this wind farm. It is minutes from Plattsburgh, N.Y., an afternoon outing in the hopes of saving Vermont and our children and grandchildren and our wild creatures from generations of a move to wind power and its devastation, with its own large carbon footprint.

Is the relatively small gain to the electric grid really worth it? I implore you to reconsider and to vote in favor of Vermont and all of its inhabitants, human and animal. Let’s put Vermonters’ ingenuity to work and support more research into other power and fuel alternatives and take more responsibility for minimizing our own carbon footprints.

Deborah Caldbeck lives in Colchester.


URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2011/04/10/is-large-scale-wind-worth-it/