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Solar power NIMBYs have a point
Credit: Written by Deb Mager Rickner | Burlington Free Press | www.burlingtonfreepress.com 31 August 2012 ~~
Your article about opposition to massive solar arrays covering the landscape of Vermont (“In their backyard,” Aug. 20) displays a rather biased dislike of NIMBYs (not in my backyard). While “aesthetics” shouldn’t be the main reason one should oppose these solar industrial parks, the NIMBYs do have a point.
I’ve been an advocate of the concept of solar for over 30 years. But now that it is here, I have to wonder why these solar arrays are covering acres and acres of our meadows and farmlands. What happens to the flora and fauna who are shaded out by these industrial implantations? Doesn’t anyone see that these endless solar arrays have a negative environmental impact in their own way? Like the wind towers on our ridges, the solar arrays are nothing more than industrial parks.
Your article mentions the parking lot between Walmart and Home Depot, which leads me to a common sense suggestion I have made to family and friends for years: why not place these solar arrays on the unused rooftops of sprawling buildings like the big box stores? There are sprawling buildings and city rooftops all over the country that could support these solar arrays, and the taller buildings in the cities could support arrays of smaller wind towers.
I am sure there are many excuses as to why these suggestions wouldn’t work, but let’s get past them: rooftop installations would be a much better solution for our transition to solar and wind energy than carpeting our landscape with solar panels and blowing up our pristine mountaintops.
Deb Mager Rickner lives in Monkton
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