The US Forest Service has notified the town of Wilmington that the town does not have “standing” to appeal the land development permit granted to construct wind turbines in the Green Mountain National Forest in Searsburg and Readsboro.
My personal reaction to this is one of disappointment that this change in a national forest, that belongs to us all, will occur. I could list all the reasons that I’ve come to believe that the only beneficiaries of this flawed endeavor are the energy companies that receive federal subsidies, but I’d prefer to mention only what is to many of us the core issue: we love Vermont and its mountains the way they are, not as support posts for industrial development.
As Charles W. Johnson, retired Vermont state naturalist, wrote in a recent op-ed, “This fight is not just about that which can be weighed and solved by science, capacity studies and permitting processes At its heart, it is about something we don’t talk about especially in the political arena: love of the land…how do we calculate what mountains mean to us?”
Thank you for reading and thinking about this. These are my views and not necessarily those of the Wilmington Selectboard of which I am a member.
If you are interested in learning more about this issue and supporting groups that will continue to focus on the wind turbine issue, please contact Vermonters for a Clean Environment at www.vce.org and National Wind Watch at www.wind-watch.org.
Meg Streeter
Wilmington
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2012/04/12/disappointed-about-ruling/