Editor’s note: This commentary is by Jim Tomczak, of Milton, who is 62, works at a golf course and is paying close attention to our society and writing poetry at will.
[I] have been thinking about the wind turbines on Georgia Mountain and the complaints from local neighbors of a constant noise invading their homes and yards from above. The arguments seem to be framed in the usual Big Guy vs. Little Guy context and I know there was heated discussion about their worth (only four towers on this wind farm) and its environmental effect. It seemed to me at first that the size of the injustice, noise produced due to damage and unfulfilled codes, was small but I also know that coexisting with modern times is a most difficult task. NIMBY, as a concept, is very understandable. In a way, that’s why we live in Vermont; we don’t wish major cities and all that implies, in our backyard.
I live rather close to the turbines in Milton, 2 miles south and a half mile west. Now that the trees are bare I can see the turbines out my back deck. I like the way they catch the sunlight now and then but their appearance doesn’t move me. They are but one of many scars on the land that spoils the view. Everything becomes familiar after a while. Unfortunately, the complaints of birds and bats cannot be heard. That bothers me a bit.
There is a constant slew of noise hitting us at all times and that the idea of near silence is a strict impossibility in this or most areas.
I decided to step outdoors one recent early evening to discover whether I could hear for myself the screaming sound as it has been described; I did not expect to, but I was unable to begin. With recent rains, the sound of water being released from Arrowhead dam was a bit loud; it’s only a couple blocks away. That water crashing, along with Clark Falls shortly downstream, is one of the nicest things I like about our location. On a warm spring night during runoff, the sound serenades us through the first nights of open windows. So I enjoy that particular background noise, but it got me to thinking.
There is a constant slew of noise hitting us at all times and that the idea of near silence is a strict impossibility in this or most areas, due to the location of Interstate 89 about a mile and a half east. The sound of a screaming 53-footer flying at 65 can really travel when conditions are right. Add the constant stream of local traffic (which never really takes a break) along with nighttime traffic gunners, trains headed by, planes overhead, tractors and manure spreaders, chainsaws, lawnmowers, and everyone’s fall favorite, the leaf blower, and you wonder how hard you would have to concentrate in order to hear a noise from a damaged turbine or at what time of the day. I am not doubting the existence of the annoyance, but we fill the world with noise after noise and no one seems to holler much, in fact, we go out of our way with buying huge pickup trucks and larger lawn tractors while wearing out a billion tires a year on overcrowded highways. I’m sure you will agree, traffic noise is the worst.
Civilization exacts its toll on us in so very many ways. When a summer evening is spoiled by a singing turbine or a screaming motorbike, the results are the same. Noise is annoying, but there it is, a product of everything we do. Pity the poor birds; they are out in it continually. Every complaint about modernity and change is misdirected; we all use electricity, we all drive cars. The answer is to find change in ourselves and continue to bargain with the devil in the details of our modern, modern society and the ideas that drive us to build such things. There must be alternatives, we just can’t hear them among the din.
