Published on September 6, 2006

MONTPELIER — The Public Service Board (PSB) last week denied an appeal of its decision that dashed plans to erect four wind towers on the summit of East Mountain.

Given the controversy over placing industrial wind farm on Vermont ridge lines, the case was closely watched as the first wind project in recent years to petition the board for a certificate of public good (CPG).

Consequently, when the board’s hearing officer recommended last spring against giving developers a CPG for aesthetic reasons and because the project is close to the conserved Champion lands, a cry and hue went up warning that Vermont’s fledging wind industry had been dealt a crippling blow.

But that’s not the lingering impression now. In fact, some in the industry see the board’s carefully worded decision — released August 31 — as “a green light” for future wind projects.

In its five-page order, the board stuck to its guns, reiterating that it could not grant a CPG in this case because the developers had failed to meet the letter of the law. That is to say that East Haven Windfarm did not do the field studies that would allow the board to determine whether giant wind towers, roughly 330 feet tall, would have an adverse effect on birds and bats.

“Without that evidence, we cannot make a positive finding under Section 248(b)(5), and without a positive finding, we cannot issue a CPG,” wrote the board in a conclusion released last week.

But for some in the industry the denial came with a silver lining.

“Most in the industry and myself feel that it opens more doors than it closes,” said Andrew Perchlik in an interview Tuesday.

Mr. Perchlik, who heads Renewable Energy Vermont, a trade association, was responding to findings made by the board, which characterize wind as a viable source of renewable energy.

“We wish to be perfectly clear on a fundamental point,” wrote the two board members, John Burke and David Coen. “The record in this proceeding demonstrates that wind generation projects such as the one that EMDC has proposed can bring substantial benefits.” (In the board document, the parent company of East Haven Windfarm is referred to as EMDC.)

As of August 1, according to a web page from Fairwind Vermont, there were five active proposals for wind farms in Vermont, excluding the one proposed for East Mountain. However only two appear to be active. A proposal for 19 turbines on Glebe Mountain has been shelved, while two others — a six-turbine project in Manchester and 13-to-27-turbine project for Lowell — have been nudged to the back burner, according to Mr. Perchlik.

Still active is the Searsburg expansion, 18 to 27 turbines, according to Fairwind Vermont’s web page, along with UPC’s proposal of 24 towers along Hardscrabble Mountain in Sheffield and Sutton.

A CPG hearing before the PSB on the Sheffield-Sutton project is scheduled to start early in December and run roughly two weeks, from December 4 to 15.

As far as projects go, the UPC proposal is expected to be as controversial as the one that failed to pass muster on East Mountain. Already, the Department of Public Service has raised reservations about the project’s impact on regional growth and development and its effect on a nearby private school, King George.

Yet when it comes to wind siting on a case by case basis, the department has been all over the map.

Initially, it supported the East Mountain project in the hearings before the board. But in the appeal, it did a turnabout and joined forces with the Agency of Natural Resource by asserting that East Haven Windfarm had failed to do its homework on birds and bats.

That turnabout may arguably reflect the politics in this year’s race for governor. The Republican incumbent, Jim Douglas, has come out strongly against industrial wind farms on Vermont ridge lines, while his opponent, Democrat Scudder Parker supports wind as a component in the state’s energy mix.

Though Mr. Perchlik believes the politics will die away after the election is over, he acknowledged that many in the industry are skeptical about the department’s change of heart. As far as its criticism of the UPC project goes, he said, it’s “a change that the comments don’t explain,” referring to the pre-hearing filings on the Sheffield project submitted by the department. Maybe, he added, it is “coming from the top down.”

Unlike the Department of Public Service, which advocates on behalf of the public, the Public Service Board is a quasi-legal entity and more independent. And in the appeal decision on East Mountain, it listed several benefits that wind farms would bring to the state, in effect, endorsing many of the arguments that were originally put forth by developers.

“We have no quarrel with EMDC’s claim that we should carefully weigh both the impacts and the benefits of its project in order to determine whether it will have an undue adverse impact on birds and bats,” it says in its August 31 order.

“We also agree with EMDC’s contention that its proposed wind generation facility would provide a number of benefits to the state and the region.”

In reaching that conclusion, Mr. Perchlik said, the board rejected most of the technical and aesthetic arguments that opponents of wind have offered. And while the board’s denial of a CPG for East Mountain was the worst thing that could happen for the industry, he also argued that wind developers next time through will have a better understanding of what the board expects of them.

Yet that, too, may be a mixed blessing.

Costs of pre-construction studies using radar over a three-year period could freeze out homegrown developers or small-scale projects. According to Mr. Perchlik, three-year studies are costly and time consuming and lend themselves to deep pockets and big projects.

“It would be very hard for us to have many small projects,” he said.

If the same studies are required of all projects, whether they number two or 22 turbines, only the large one would be likely to succeed.

The small, local operators, he argued, “are not going to pencil out.”