Editor’s note: This commentary is by Sandy Wilbur, of South Londonderry, who is a forensic musicologist and composer/producer of the “Learning History Through Music” project for grades K-8 and author with Kimberley Ray of “Goodnight My Honey Bunnies.”
The Public Service Board has come up with sensible and rational rules relating to industrial wind noise and proximity to neighbors. It is high time. Our most precious Vermont resources are not intermittent wind, but the mountains of Vermont with their fragile ecosystems, the source of our clean water, and the natural environment that is fundamental to dealing with climate change. Communities, like ours in Londonderry, where projects have been proposed, have divided neighbors and relatives and broken down the fabric of our communities. These wounds, inflicted on these often unprepared communities by profit-seeking developers and their “environmental” allies, will take generations to heal.
Ultimately, people will have to learn to live with less, not more energy.
But things have started to change. Recent sound and infrasound studies have confirmed the harm this is doing to people who live too close to these ever-increasingly large turbines. People are starting to see that there are positive ways to address climate change without destroying the quality of life of our neighbors or our most precious mountain resources. The people of Vermont are more important than any amount of money that is offered to towns. And with the ludicrous aim of mandating 90 percent renewables by 2050 but selling the renewable energy credits to neighboring states (who get the renewable credits rather than Vermont) the irony is clear. Another irony is that 1 percent of Hydro-Quebec’s renewable output could serve 100 percent of Vermont’s electric needs while demanding 90 percent in-state renewables will actually increase Vermont’s fossil fuel use by requiring natural gas backup for Vermont’s non-baseload renewable sources.
Small scale and community scale wind that is acceptable to communities, solar that is reasonably and appropriately located, and efficiency measures to reduce fossil fuel use are a much better fit for Vermont. Ultimately, people will have to learn to live with less, not more energy. I trust that the good citizens of Vermont already know this and are more than willing to do their part so that our precious mountain resources aren’t ruined in the name of the “public good.” This “public good” has been bad for the people and communities of Vermont where projects have been proposed and I am sincerely encouraged that the PSB has given thoughtful and balanced regard to these complex issues.
