Area group forms to stop 'big wind' on ridgelines
Toolbox
By Gordon Dritschilo STAFF WRITER - Published: January 27, 2010
A new group calling itself "Energize Vermont" has pledged to get communities more involved in utility permitting and to fight to keep wind turbines off Vermont's ridgelines.
"What brought this on was a concern by a large number of people that various types of alternative energy, in this case what we call 'big wind,' (were) coming in and trying to establish themselves without any criteria about how these towers should be sited," president John Liccardi of Castleton said Tuesday.
Liccardi said that while the group does not advocate any specific criteria on tower siting, they do not want to see windmills on ridgelines.
"We are not anti any kind of renewable power," he said. "What we are is against any kind of technology that would destroy our mountaintops for a questionable result."
Liccardi went on to say the wind industry lacks data supporting its claims about the technology. He said the group is not opposed to industrial wind projects anywhere in the state.
"There may be good places for wind," he said. "In New York state, they have them on abandoned farmland … long, flat sites."
David Lamont, director of the planning and energy resources division at the Vermont Department of Public Service, said state regulations for siting electricity-generation projects apply to wind farms the same as any other technology, and pointed out that a wind farm in East Haven was rejected under the criteria.
"They all apply to wind turbines," Lamont said. "There are none I would say are special to wind turbines, though we have required decommissioning funds."
Liccardi said the group has organized as a 501c3 and plans lobbying activities and will be available to advise communities where large-scale renewable energy projects have been proposed.
"We are committed to protecting the environment, conserving energy, developing clean energy resources … but in a manner which is harmonious with our state and has direct community involvement," he said.
Liccardi also said the state needs to give local communities more of a say in such projects.
"Act 250 is a good example — public involvement in what the developer is doing," he said. "They have to be parties to the proceeding. Right now they are not."
The group's eight-member Board of Directors is made up entirely from people in Rutland County, Liccardi said, where two large-scale wind developments have been proposed.
Jeffrey Wennberg, spokesman for one of them, Vermont Community Wind Farm, rejected the suggestion that wind power was unproven and that the wind industry lacked data supporting its claims.
"That's just not true," he said. "There's thousands of wind turbines in the U.S. There's 70,000 around the world. This is not an experimental technology. … It's the fastest-growing new technology in the world."
Wennberg said each site has to be studied individually, which is what his company is doing at its proposed site in Ira.
The new organization has a Web site, energizevermont.org.
gordon.dritschilo@rutlandherald.com
19