Editor’s note: This commentary is by Nancy Tips, who is a member of Friends of Windham.
[B]an Big Wind. It’s a slogan that many Vermonters would gladly get behind, thereby giving the folks at Vermont Public Interest Research Group (VPIRG) even more heartburn than they are currently experiencing, pursuant to the recent rule on wind turbine noise proposed by the Vermont Public Service Board. VPIRG imagines that the proposed sound rule would, as written, “effectively ban any further wind energy development in the state.” By their lights, it would be only an “effective” ban, instead of the very real ban craved by Vermont’s growing anti-industrial-wind movement, whose ranks curiously swell with each misguided effort to cram a new wind project down the throats of an unsuspecting community.
At this point, rather than calling for a ban, our statewide mobilization is focusing attention on Vermont’s network of laws, rules and regulations, developed over decades and reflecting Vermont’s values, that are meant to protect us all from misguided development that would destroy what we prize. Not surprisingly, Vermont’s system of legal protections clearly indicates what Vermonters care about most: protection for individuals; protection for wildlife and the environment; and protection for our tourist-dependent economy. Take a look:
Vermont provides support and protection for individual citizens, including giving us the right to live on and enjoy our property. The PSB’s recent draft rule on wind turbine noise is part of the protection we deserve and, as written, would begin to align Vermont’s position with that of European countries, as well as of thousands of individuals with years of experience of living next to industrial wind installations. Certainly Vermont should have setbacks and noise standards to protect individual Vermonters from noise and visual nuisance, joining other legal protections for people who want to live quietly and harmoniously in their own homes. But such protections would not, as VPIRG spokespeople are contending, amount to a virtual ban on wind turbines, because there would still be ridgeline sites where turbines could be placed under the proposed PSB sound rule. Except for the fact that:
There is no evidence that “turbine tourism” ever existed, but if it ever did, it is unlikely to be flourishing in a world where wind turbines are proliferating, while the perfect vistas and pristine woodland experiences that draw people to Vermont are vanishing.
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Vermont also provides support and protections for species other than humans, and for the environment that sustains them. And, simply put, ridgeline siting of industrial wind turbines poses too great a risk to the natural systems that earnest Vermonters have been protecting for decades, through webs of tightly constructed rules and laws. Our legal systems are designed to ensure, for example, water purity, protection for streams and wetlands, and maintenance of contiguous habitat blocks that support wildlife in its varied forms. But, you say, rigorous permitting would provide protection of our priceless assets by ensuring properly sited, carefully maintained wind projects. Sadly, evidence of the flawed and leaky nature of Vermont’s permitting processes is mounting. But even if these processes operated the way they’re meant to, what about the fact that:
Vermont vigorously protects our state’s unique “mythic virtues” (quietude, unspoiled natural beauty, etc.) that sustain the tourism that, in turn, sustains many of us economically. Rules and laws prevent types of development that would diminish Vermont’s standing with tourists and second-home owners from all over the world who regard our state, rightly or wrongly, as a magical natural haven. Ridgeline wind projects, despite the natterings about their beauty that we hear from the wind profiteers, require immense violation of the landscape and the soundscape. And before you ask, there is no evidence that “turbine tourism” ever existed, but if it ever did, it is unlikely to be flourishing in a world where wind turbines are proliferating, while the perfect vistas and pristine woodland experiences that draw people to Vermont are vanishing. It is even more unlikely that people will be silly enough to come to Vermont to admire those “distant, slowly turning windmills” as emblems of our green-energy progressivism. Because of the increasingly recognized fact that:
None of the wind turbines built or proposed in Vermont count towards our state’s renewable-energy goals. These goals, incidentally, are part of a flawed policy that is unsupported even by its authors, who admit that our Comprehensive Energy Plan won’t help with global warming, wasn’t based on consideration of Vermont’s carbon emissions – the lowest of the 50 states – and allows power companies that buy Vermont’s wind energy to offset the high price by selling Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) out of state. Wind energy generated in Vermont helps, for example, Connecticut to meet its renewable energy goals, but not Vermont. Is it any wonder that a growing number of people, many Vermonters included, are denouncing these nutty tactics in favor of a more mature version of green-energy progressivism?
In short, while many of us would love to see VPIRG’s “effective” ban turned into a real, legislated ban on new industrial wind projects, we are counting on existing rules and laws, properly enforced, to bestow the protection we, our environment, and our tourist economy deserve.