Good advice, given that the developers answered too many probing
questions with "I don't know." Still, some indisputable facts did
emerge. Each wind turbine will be 500 feet high, from base to rotor tip.
(The height of the Washington Monument.) Twenty turbines a mile apart
will rise all along the Northfield Ridge from Roxbury Gap to Moretown.
Each turbine will require a denuded, one-acre base with a footing
consisting of thousands of tons of concrete.
Also required are permanent roads adequate for heavy earthmoving
machinery, concrete trucks, and giant cranes capable of installing the
turbines. (More earth-friendly helicopters, like those used by Sugarbush
for lift tower installation, were deemed "too expensive.") Such roads
will lead up both ends of the ridge and all along its length.
Inevitably, so much construction will destroy the ridge's viewshed and
disrupt or destroy its ecosystem and watershed.
Another key fact came to light. Asked if they had considered the Green
Mountains' higher, windier ridges for such construction, the developers
said no. Building in the Green Mountain National Forest required (among
other things) environmental impact statements that were too expensive
and time-consuming. The ridge's little towns have no such statutory
requirements in place.
This, too, is certain: The project would destroy forever a natural
resource millions of years in the making and of inestimable value to The
Valley's ecosystem and economy. The project's ultimate beneficiary will
be an out-of-state, for-profit company that, like Vermont Yankee's
Entergy, has the sole responsibility of maximizing profit for
shareholders.
Does the value of wind-generated electricity justify sacrificing the
Northfield Ridge? Perhaps. But on Tuesday night, the developers did not
present compelling evidence that this would be so.
Jim Tabor
Waitsfield
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