BRATTLEBORO — Further large scale wind development is completely incompatible with Vermont's landscape, resources, scenery, and overall economic drivers.
I was elated to read about the proposed plan that says that large-scale wind turbines are unsuitable for the 27-town Windham County region.
Wind farms destroy mountaintop environments forever. I think if the general public saw what kind of large-scale devastation the creation of a wind farm does to a mountain environment, they would be aghast.
Typically, the wind company has to lop off a sizable portion of the top of a mountain and engage in massive rock and earth moving to seat the wind turbines and create a network of roads. This happens at high elevations, where fragile plants, migration routes, pristine headwater sources, and the Vermont landscape is overall incredibly sensitive.
What people must realize is this scarring to the mountain summits and ridgelines can never be put back; it forever alters the mountain landscape in a tragic and massive way.
In addition, the wind turbines create light pollution. I recently hiked Moat Mountain off of the Kancamagus Highway in New Hampshire. I made it to the summit at dusk and I looked back east toward the Kancamagus high point.
Nothing. No blinking lights, no development - just the starry night sky and wilderness-filled silhouettes cast by the moon.
New Hampshire got it right and kept this part of the state pristine. It is vital for Vermont to preserve its scenic beauty, for which our state is best known.
Vermont must preserve its ridgelines, not only from massive mountaintop environmental permanent scarring but also the blinking lights that steal the night sky and undermine so much of why our state is a special place to begin with.
No more large-scale windmills in Vermont: Let's put our focus into developing solar, which has tremendous benefits and far less impact on everything that makes this state special.