They are best suited for extremely rural areas - not resorts. They do
not fit well in places with a lot of development. East Warren and the
areas around Scrag Mountain and Ski Valley Acres have a lot of
development close to the proposed turbine locations. Lest you think that
the Northfield Ridge is not developed, come fly with us over the area
and see the many, many houses that have sprung up there on or not far
below the ridgeline in the last few decades.
There are other considerations. For one, the effect on glider flying in
The Valley would be enormous. Sugarbush Soaring at the Warren-Sugarbush
Airport off the East Warren Road is the premier soaring site in New
England. Sugarbush Soaring may not be on the top of everyone's list in
The Valley, but it is one of the many attractions that bring people -
tourists, second-home owners, and several full-time residents - to our
Valley, and it does provide employment for four full-time and several
part-time seasonal employees.
The flying conditions and the beautiful views from the air both permit
us to give exciting rides to non-pilots - many of you have taken a ride
with us - and to offer instruction and contest flying for local and
visiting pilots. All this will be seriously compromised by building
500-foot wind turbines on the Northfield Ridge on the east side of The
Valley just a relatively short distance from our runway.
"LIFT"
Why? The usual winds on this ridge give gliders the "lift" to stay
aloft for a reasonable passenger ride and to permit the more experienced
pilots to head out on cross-country flights - as far as Jay Peak, Mt.
Washington and Manchester on the better days. Without lift, glider
flights would be "cold slides" back to earth after only 5 to 10 minutes
aloft - no reason to take a ride or to launch your own glider or to have
a soaring operation.
The East Ridge, as we call it, is certainly not the only source of lift
in The Valley, but it is our nearest and thus principal one, both from
the winds blowing up over it and the sun-provided hot air "thermals"
that generate and break free from the top of it. You can easily imagine
the safety compromise for a glider to get anywhere near a wind turbine.
These things are 500 feet high. Flying near or over them in a glider at
the altitudes we normally can reach in our conditions over the ridge -
often just a few hundred to usually no more than a thousand feet above
ground -- would be very dangerous. Without the East Ridge, we would be
very seriously hindered as a soaring site.
MOST IMPORTANT
And the most important part of the ridge for us is the portion between
the Moretown area and a little south of the Roxbury Road Gap - not much
more than the area being proposed for the Waitsfield project.
There are many websites that you can visit to see the side effects of
wind turbines. One of the most impressive is a Youtube video of a
turbine failure in Denmark two years ago.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=QL-cRuYAxgO. Another is a report on icing on a
turbine in Vermont: www.windaction.org/documents/14582. You can also
Google windaction.org/news/14335 for more. I don't want to be
unnecessarily negative, but let's look before we leap! A lot of us would
be affected.
Bob Messner lives in Warren.
