Published on October 1, 2003

EAST HAVEN — The push to get information on the pros and cons of wind power for the Northeast Kingdom is approaching gale force.

The owners of East Haven Windfarm met with residents here Monday to promote their plan to put four 330-foot towers on East Mountain at the site of the former radar base.

Two more public meetings on the project will be held in Island Pond and Lyndonville before the plan goes before the Public Service Board (PSB) in November for final approval.

As that project moves forward, the Northeastern Vermont Development Association (NVDA) is planning to put together a wind power task force that will be chaired by Senator Jim Greenwood of Orleans.

In an interview Tuesday, Senator Greenwood said the intent is to put information together that will highlight both the advantages and disadvantages of installing wind towers on Northeast Kingdom ridgelines.

“It’s a fact-finding commission that will put together the facts on wind farms and do away with hearsay and innuendo,” he said.

While Senator Greenwood is the only legislator to sit on what is expected to be a nine-member commission, his colleague in the Senate is working to organize a wind forum of his own.

Senator Vince Illuzzi said Tuesday he expects to hold a public forum, perhaps at Lake Region Union High School, on the controversial technology and how the state certification process works before the PSB.

“I’m one of the cheerleaders,” he said, speaking of wind power’s potential to deliver cheap energy. “But we have to take into mind the disadvantages.”

Since the announcement last winter of plans to install 50 wind towers on ten miles of ridgeline in lower Essex County, the controversy over wind power has escalated.

Fears that the giant towers will be an eyesore, scare tourists away, and undermine property values have been voiced by a diverse set of interests. Some of those fears, laced with distrust and sometimes outright hostility, surfaced Tuesday night at East Haven.

“Fifty turbines in that size area,” exclaimed a man from the floor who said he moved to the region from Connecticut. “Man, that's going to change the whole area.”

"If I were a bear, I’d move to Canada," said a woman who identified herself as a Burke resident.

If the benefits are so great from having a wind farm, another man wondered, “where are all the towns that want them?”

Two of the comments drew a smattering of applause, underscoring a popular notion that while wind power might have some advantages, no one wants big towers in their backyard.

Perhaps more than any other developers, Windfarm’s owners, Matthew Rubin and David Rappaport, understand the importance of building a public consensus around their project. Most of the 50 towers they want to erect would go on land encumbered by public access and forest easements. To change those easements could require the public to be on their side.

If the entities who hold those easements see a consensus developing, noted Mr. Rubin, the project will go forward.

But if none is forthcoming, he added, “We will walk away.”

While the political motive behind the four-tower demonstration project is to allay public fears, the intent is to establish an immediate alternative power source that will produce energy and save money. The four turbines would produce enough power to light 3,000 homes. They would save Lyndon Electric Department roughly $100,000 in power bills. And, according to Mr. Rubin, the demonstration project would pay “one-quarter of the town’s taxes.”

Windfarm, a Montpelier-based company, hopes to have its plan before the PSB by November. But that plan could be siderailed if Senator Illuzzi succeeds, through a consensus of his own making, to change the rules of the game.

The PSB, he said in an interview Tuesday, may not be the proper or the only forum to determine the fate of wind power in Vermont. The senior Orleans County Senator has repeatedly charged that the three-member PSB is too cozy with utility investors to be allowed to have the final say over what will happen on Vermont’s ridgelines.

(According to Windfarm’s presentation Tuesday night, five wind power projects are well underway in the state, two in the Northeast Kingdom — East Haven and Lowell — and three in the south — Glebe Mountain, Equinox Mountain, and the Searsburg Expansion.)

All such projects need a certificate of public good following a Section 248 hearing before the PSB.

And when it comes to wind power, noted Senator Illuzzi, “Section 248 has never been tested in this area before.”

The senator is equally skeptical of the impartiality of a task force sponsored by NVDA. He said Tuesday the regional planning agency has no credibility in this debate.

“As far as I’m concerned, their goal is to bring tax revenues and jobs to the area,” he said.

It would be “contrary to their mission” to organize a task force, he said. As an agency designed to promote regional economic development, the senator added, NVDA “is not in a position to say no.”

Yet, if Senator Greenwood has his way, NVDA will not be taking any position on wind power.

“I don’t believe it’s up to NVDA to instruct the towns: Yes we like wind power; No we don’t,” he said in a phone interview from the office where he serves as Citizen Utilities’ Vermont regulatory manager.

Senator Greenwood said the task force would focus on gathering facts that will help towns make a decision. To that end, he said, it will try to answer questions such as: “How much will it cost ratepayers to have wind power?”

Since Citizens is leaving the state, Senator Greenwood sees no conflict in chairing the task force. Rather, he said, it will give the task force an “insider’s view.”

At one point during his presentation Monday night, Mr. Rubin argued that wind turbines are not a creation of government subsidies or a get-rich-quick scheme, but a legitimate player in the power generating industry.

“These things are going to be here because they work,” he said. “They make a profit.”