Published on January 21, 2004

The public debate is still raging over the aesthetic impact wind towers will have on Northeast Kingdom ridgelines. That argument, however, is all but mute in recent testimony from professionals filed with Public Service Board (PSB).

Three professionals in landscape architecture agree in two separate opinions that the towers will have no adverse effect on aesthetics. Or, if they do, they will be overshadowed by the towers’ benefits.

Those are the written conclusions filed by professionals hired by East Haven Windfarm, the Montpelier company that is seeking PSB approval to place four 330-foot towers on East Mountain.

Although billed as both a stand-alone and a demonstration project, they would be the first phase of a plan to put up 50 towers on Essex County ridgelines extending into the Seneca Mountain range.

A landscape architect from Burlington, Terry Boyle, also testified on aesthetic issues for the Searsburg Wind Project, which won PSB approval in 1997 and today is the only working wind farm in Vermont.

Along with his associate, Michael Buscher, who did much of the field work at East Haven, Mr. Boyle filed his testimony with the board last November. The methods used to assess the impact at East Mountain are, according to testimony, “very similar to the methodology used in the Searsburg case.”

Because of its remote location, the two experts concluded that East Mountain is an ideal spot for a wind farm.

“The Project is actually visible from a remarkably small number of locations,” they say in their testimony. “In our experience, it would be difficult to find a high elevation (i.e., windy) location in Vermont, with an existing road to the summit, that is as hidden from view as East Mountain.”

Their testimony goes on to say that the towers will be less visible than the towers at Searsburg.

“The nearest location where they are visible to the general public will be approximately six to eight miles, whereas at Searsburg there are locations on local and state roads as close at 1/2 mile. The number of people expected to have visual access is also much less, being primarily local travel on minor roads with a few residences.”

Mr. Boyle and Mr. Buscher further testify that because the mountaintop once served as a radar base, the wind turbines will not be out of context. As for public opposition, the two suggest it will soften and fade once the towers are up and running, as it did as Searsburg.

“Most people recognize the environmental benefits of wind power over alternatives and this influences their perception,” they testified. “Others who have not experienced wind turbines often imagine the worst because it is a change to the landscape they know. The perceptions of many people change after seeing the turbines constructed and appreciate the silent slow moving blades at work harvesting the wind.”

Mr. Boyle is equally confident that the two flashing lights on the generator housing— white during the daytime and red at night — will not cause an adverse effect.

The nighttime light will flash 20 times a minute, while the daytime light will double that rate, flashing 40 times a minute.

Mr. Boyle says he observed the red or night light from roughly 7.5 miles away, and found it difficult to pick it out in the night sky.

“Once I found it, it appeared to have the intensity of a star, pulsating once every three seconds,” he testified. “The intermittency of the light did not attract the eye.”

The reason why the flashing night light was difficult to pick out, according to his testimony, is that the lens has been designed to focus above the horizontal plane to alert aviators. “Below the horizontal plane the intensity of the light drops dramatically,” he says.

If the board finds that the turbines do not fit their surroundings, Mr. Boyle argues that the aesthetic impact would not be unduly adverse because of the reasons he listed in support of the project, and because of the absence of “community standards” for wind towers in the Northeast Kingdom.

Neither East Haven nor Burke have a “clear written standard as to aesthetics,” according to his testimony.

The analysis used by Mr. Boyle is called the Quechee Test, named for an Act 250 analysis in that town years ago to determine if a project fit its surroundings. In a second opinion submitted to the PSB in November, Peter Owens, a landscape architect and planner from Hanover, New Hampshire, argues that the Quechee Test is too narrow to apply to a wind farm’s aesthetic impact.

“Traditionally, ‘fit’ has been equated with sameness,” he testified. “But this approach doesn’t work very well with something that is fundamentally different from its surroundings like a wind farm.”

To overcome these problems with methodology, Mr. Owens says that “evaluating how manmade elements ‘fit’ into landscape...must go beyond simply whether they are the ‘same’ as their surroundings. Fit depends on qualities of both consistency and contrast.”

Consequently, argues Mr. Owens, whose work over the years has involved “cultural landscape assessment,” a landscape is a product of scenic views, cultural values, and historical relationships. It is not static, but dynamic and always changing.

“Aspiring to an aesthetic of ‘sameness’ implies a landscape frozen in time, unable to adapt to new human endeavors no matter how appropriate,” he testified. “By recognizing the underlying principles of the Vermont landscape as dynamic ones, it is possible to develop a concept of ‘fit’ that can accommodate elements of change as well as continuity within a unified aesthetic whole.”

In concluding that the Windfarm demonstration project will not have “an undue adverse effect on aesthetics,” Mr. Owens applies four basic principles.

First, he says the project will have “compatibility with Vermont’s value-laden landscape.” Under this principle, he goes on to say that “increasing dependence on imported, environmentally damaging energy sources is at odds with Vermont values. Wind power is an opportunity to reintroduce energy production into the landscape as a symbol of Vermont’s environmental priorities.”

Second, Mr. Owens says, the project will integrate and “add a positive visual dimension to the Northeast Kingdom’s working landscape.”

Third, he says, “wind farms belong where the wind blows. In Vermont this means ridgelines. Landscape scenery depends on basic agreement of function and location.”

Mr. Owens’ final principle states that “increased public knowledge results in increased attraction.”

And to that end, Mr. Owens contends: “Though rigorous research on this topic is limited, experience in Vermont and Northern Europe suggest that the more people that understand the environmental benefits of well-designed wind farms, the more attractive they find them.”

Mr. Owens told the board that he does not believe that wind farms would be appropriate on every Vermont ridgeline. But East Mountain, he argues, “is arguably among the best sites in Vermont.”

A wind farm there will go “on a previously industrialized ridgeline.” There is no “designated wilderness area” it will impact and it has “limited visibility from its immediate surroundings.”

“I am confident it will not have an adverse effect on the landscape aesthetics of the region, let alone an undue adverse effect,” he concludes.

Despite their different approaches, Mr. Boyle testified he agreed with the analysis Mr. Owens employed because the project has socially redeeming values.

“I believe it is appropriate for the Board to take a much more expansive view of the concept of ‘fit,’ especially when permitting projects that it determines to be in the public good and that provide significant societal benefits.”

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