Wind Turbines: The Not-So-Green Mountain State
 |
Co-chairs of Newark Neighbors group advocating
against Seneca Mountain Wind |
About one year ago, Noreen Hessian and Mark Whitworth of Newark, Vermont in the Northeast Kingdom knew only about 17 people in the area. One of the appeals of Vermont is the seclusion in the mountains. No noise. No industry. Just nature. People who live in this area do so in large by choice. There are no streetlights, stores, or shops. There’s one paved road and not a single stop sign. It’s the quintessential small, extremely rural Vermont town. “We give up all the urban conveniences, no coffee shop, no library, no restaurant or movie theater, no hardware store, but we do so in exchange for the privilege of living with an intimate relationship with the natural world” quoted Hession. Today Noreen and Mark know hundreds. Hundreds of scientists, politicians, advocates, experts and citizens who, by request of Noreen and other residents, educated the Northeast Kingdom on every aspect of wind energy in order to know the truth about these “supposed” industrial renewable energy towers destroying the topography of their mountain ridgelines. What they discovered is a green-washed mask of the negative repercussions of Wind Turbine renewable energy. Ecosystem destruction, health implications, and topography demolition are only three of the many negative impacts of wind energy not to mention the economic consequences. It arouses the question, what are the trade–offs of 21st century renewable energy in the form of wind?
Seneca Mountain is located in Northeast Kingdom and was targeted by a company out of New Hampshire called Eolian Renewable Energy. Noreen and other Newark residents first heard of the prospective project a day after a town meeting almost 2 ½ years ago sparking immediate suspicion from residents who believed they were robbed of the chance to talk about the project in their town meeting (Noreen giving a talk to PSB on left). With suspicion and skepticism rising, Noreen and others started an educational campaign to find out if destroying their mountaintops would be overall beneficial to the environment and their town. “Convince me that it’s worth it to turn one of the most beautiful, remote areas in Vermont into an industrial wind farm. Convince me that this is really going to solve global warming” quoted Noreen. After listening to speakers and experts such as Professor Ben Luce of Lyndon State, State Senator Jane Kitchel, Chris Recchia from the Agency of Natural Resources, Annette Smith from VCE and wildlife experts Sue Morse and Will Staats, Northeast Kingdom residents concluded that the negatives outweighed the positives when it came to Wind Energy.
 |
| Lowell Mountain trubine pad (Photo by Steve Wright) |
To understand the negative response from citizens in Vermont one must first understand some of the downfalls associated with ridge line wind turbines. The first and most significant wind power consequence is ecosystem destruction. It is most significant in that, as Professor Ben Luce of Lyndon State quotes, “can’t be undone”. Mountain ridges are home to a wide range of species. With the construction of industrial wind turbines, these species dwindle in population size. According to wildlife expert Sue Morse, migration patterns are affected, food sources are diminished, and wildlife physiological, behavioral, demographic and distributional changes occur as habitats are destroyed and affected by industrial wind construction. The Northeast is rushing into renewable energy before undertaking a Cumulative Effects Assessment.
 |
| Moose on Seneca Mountain (Photo by Roger Irwin) |
Core habitat is big enough to support Vermont’s wildest wildlife such as moose, bear, or wildcat and at the same time support the full manifestation biodiversity. This is the irony of proponents of wind. Biologists worldwide now claim that connectivity is needed between core habitats across whole nations in order to provide some means for plants and animals to adapt to climate change. When the turbines are constructed on these mountain ridgelines, these habitats and ecosystems are destroyed ultimately degrading the environment that the turbines are built to protect.
 |
| Flooding destruction in VT from Hurricane Irene (Huffington post) |
In addition to ecosystem destruction, changing the topography of mountains alters the hydrology of the mountain. Hydrologist Geoff Goll of Princeton University stresses that the problem with wind projects is that not only are these areas going to be stressed from climate change, they are now going to be further stressed by the roads constructed. Essentially by installing these long roads, water drainage increases and causes more flooding in the town areas below. The water’s path diverges and changes the hydrology of the mountain due to the removal of a ton of soil and material that originally held the rainwater. Without this storage, the rainwater rushes down the hill causing flooding in towns previously devastated by flooding during Hurricane Irene.
 |
| The Therrians who experience first hand the health implications of living near turbines |
What is of major concern to those living near these towers is the health impacts. According to an article written by Sandy Reider on National Wind Watch, a coalition of groups and individuals working against industrial wind power, people living near wind turbines have trouble sleeping, chronic headaches, and deteriorating mental health from the sound levels of turbines. A range of symptoms accredited to the noise of wind turbines and are most often described as stress symptoms. They include headaches, irritability, difficulty concentrating, fatigue, dizziness, anxiety, and sleep disturbance. Those living in close proximity either end up moving or suffer and endure the continuous annoyance symptoms. Moving however is near impossible when the housing net worth decreases exponentially when there is a turbine in the backyard.
 |
| NREL map of wind energy throughout VT (NREL) |
According to Ben Luce of Lyndon State University, ridge line wind generation in the Northeast, even developed to maximum possible potential, could never offset more than a tiny fraction of the Northeast's energy demand. This follows from simply comparing the size of the wind resource in the Northeast as estimated by NREL to the energy demand of the region. The only renewable energy sources in this region of any serious consequence are solar, geothermal (as in low temperature geothermal heat captured with "ground source heat pumps", and thermal energy in the air (which can be captured with air source heat pumps). Wind, biomass, and hydro are essentially trivial sources, and all of these would have completely unacceptable environmental impacts if we attempted to maximize development. He argues that for the electricity generation, solar is really the only serious option, and NREL estimates of this resource peg the maximum level for the region at levels which far exceed the regions electricity demand. "This is not to say that overcoming issues with intermittency with solar would be easy. But we should be concentrating mainly on solar, and we should be doing this extremely carefully. Personally I believe that the hundreds of millions of dollars already committed to wind generation in VT, and the billions in the region as a whole, is a complete and economically devastating waste of money, and that it has already deeply damaged support for renewable energy and for progress politics in general” quoted Ben Luce.
 |
Prospective location on the Seneca Mountains
(Photo by Steve Wright) |
Reducing our carbon footprint is important in countering climate change, but many argue that wind is not that direction to go in when it comes to Vermont. Renewable Energy companies that are establishing ridgeline farms are alluding that they will help reduce our carbon footprint but in reality they only reduce it to the smallest of percentages. 4% of our Greenhouse Gas emissions comes from electricity.96% comes from burning of gasoline (fossil fuels) and burning fuel to stay warm in the winter (Annette Smith: executive Director of Vermonter’s for a Clean Environment). “
When my husband and I bought our home and our land we did so with the understanding it is our responsibility to be stewards of the land: to care for the natural world around us, to leave it in a little bit better shape than we found it for future generations. It’s our job to protect it, not to allow the highest bidder to destroy it for faux promises and selfish corporate greed” (Noreen Hession). Eolian Wind was overall unsuccessful in establishing wind turbines on Seneca Mountain due to the public knowledge of it costing 86 million dollars to upgrade the transmission to have electricity reach the grid and a PBS lawsuit kicked back from the Supreme Court. Newark Neighbors, the grassroots movement co-chaired by Noreen, wore the company down until Eolian decided the cost would be too much and backed off the project. This win, although not fully credited to the efforts Newark Neighbors (it came down to money), fueled more residents in other areas to educate their towns to learn and decide if wind energy is the right direction. What’s been found is an overwhelming support for an alternative to wind turbines and keeping the Green Mountain State green.
Link to documentary on the downfalls of wind energy created by Energize Vermont
http://vimeo.com/36158539
