Editor’s note: This commentary is by Judith Jackson, of Irasburg, who serves on the planning commission. Before moving to Vermont, she spent most of her professional life as the communication director for Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, a national laboratory near Chicago dedicated to research in particle physics, the science of the fundamental nature of the universe.
Consider this bizarre scenario:
In a Northeast Kingdom town, voters say an overwhelming “no” to giant wind turbines on the town’s ridgeline.
The town’s selectboard also says no to giant turbines on the town’s ridgeline, because they don’t meet the town’s development criteria.
Ditto the town’s planning commission.
The Regional Planning Commission says no to giant turbines on the town’s ridgeline because they violate the region’s development plan, and besides the Kingdom already has more than its share of giant turbines on ridgelines.
The neighbors on the ridgeline say no to giant turbines in fear for their health, their peace and quiet and their property values.
We all missed an opportunity to turn away from the bitter, divisive, expensive, drawn-out process we now use to site energy projects in Vermont.
The state’s electric utilities say they won’t buy the power from giant turbines on the town’s ridgeline because they already have more Northeast Kingdom renewable energy than they know what to do with, and building new wind turbines will mean they’ll have to start shutting down the wind turbines they already have.
So — here’s the bizarre part — in a town that doesn’t want giant wind turbines on its ridgeline, with neighbors who don’t want them, in a region that doesn’t want them, with utilities that won’t buy the power they generate, what’s a wind developer to do? Apply for a permit to build giant wind turbines on the town’s ridgeline, obviously!
That’s what wind developer David Blittersdorf apparently concluded, as the town of Irasburg recently learned upon receiving the nine pounds 12 ounces of paperwork — thud! — that constitute a copy of Blittersdorf’s application for a certificate of public good from Vermont’s Public Utility Commission to build two giant wind turbines on Irasburg’s Kidder Hill ridgeline.
What can Mr. Blittersdorf be thinking? He might be thinking of the good old days of the Shumlin administration, which never saw a ridgeline wind project it didn’t like. (That was then …) Or maybe he’s thinking of the contribution to Vermont’s economy from full employment for all of the attorneys who will now wade into the long, long “quasi-judicial” ridgeline struggle. (Chicken feed for him, budget-busting for Irasburg.) He might be thinking that no one noticed all the whoppers he’s told on applications for previous projects. (Uh-huh.) Perhaps he’s thinking that calling his project “Kidder Hill Community Wind” makes it a community project. (Is he kidding?) Surely he doesn’t believe that a couple of giant turbines on a small town’s ridgeline will save the planet on behalf of simple townsfolk who wouldn’t know global warming if it came up and bit them. (Even he wouldn’t really think that, would he?)
The thing is, we may never know what he’s thinking. That’s because he never responded to an offer by Irasburg citizens to work with him on a true public participation process that would let us hear what he’s thinking, let him hear what we’re thinking, and let us all collaborate on a renewable energy strategy that would work for everybody: save Irasburg’s ridgeline, help the planet, produce energy and benefit his bottom line. The offer went out more than a year ago, and until recently we were still waiting for a response. Those nine-plus pounds of paper seem to indicate we’ll be going down a different path.
Too bad. We all missed an opportunity to turn away from the bitter, divisive, expensive, drawn-out process we now use to site energy projects in Vermont. We missed a chance to blaze a trail right here in the Northeast Kingdom with a proven process that would work a lot better for all Vermonters, energy developers included.
Strange.
