Published on June 1, 2005

BRIGHTON — A second round of debates over wind farms for Essex County is about to begin.

A public hearing will be held here Wednesday night, June 1, on a proposal to erect three test wind towers at three different sites along the county’s ridgelines.

The hearing, which comes at the request of the Brighton Planning Commission, will be chaired by a hearing officer from the Public Service Board (PSB).

The three testing sites are located in the towns of Brighton, East Haven, and Ferdinand. A site visit will be conducted in Brighton and Ferdinand prior to the hearing.

The proposal is being brought by the same developers who recently participated in an extended hearing before PSB to erect four wind towers on East Mountain in East Haven. No decision has been handed down yet on that proposal, which requires a certificate of public good.

Normally, a petition to erect test towers attracts little attention, but given the controversy over the East Mountain proposal, Brighton town officials along with those who oppose building wind farms along Vermont’s ridge lines, wanted the project to receive a full airing.

Administrative Assistant Joel Cope said Tuesday that the town’s primary interest in the hearing is to provide citizens with information.

Behind the call for information, however, there is also brewing a jurisdictional issue over what state agency should review the proposal.

And that issue appears to be causing some dissension among town officials.

In May, Mr. Cope joined forces with the Kingdom Commons Group (KCG) in asking PSB to either require the developers to disclose the full and ultimate scale of the project or shift jurisdiction to Act 250.

“We believe we should have a better idea of what they’re planning to do,” said Brian Kelly, a KCG activist who lives in Burke.

Mr. Kelly wants to know from the outset how many wind turbines might be erected along these sites if the tests proved favorable.

But David Rapaport, vice-president of the Montpelier company, East Haven Windfarm, said such information would be premature.

“There is nothing to flush out at this point,” he said.

He sees the jurisdictional issue as a ploy by opponents to “find any way they can to fight us at the earliest stage possible.”

An earlier attempt by the state Agency of Natural Resources to have the proposal withheld until a decision had been reached on East Mountain was rejected by the board.

An attorney for the developers, Andrew Raubvogel, told the board: “The decision of the four-turbine wind project on East Mountain will have no legally binding effect on the placement of the ... towers at the three proposed locations, and may or may not affect the viability of future wind farms at the three locations.”

However, by joining KCG’s call for more information, Mr. Cope may have ruffled the feathers of some town officials.

“That’s not the official position of the town,” noted Bob Merchant Tuesday, the chairman of the Brighton Selectmen. “We’ve never taken a vote on it; it’s not been on the agenda.”

Mr. Cope agrees. The town has no position on wind turbines, he said.

In the joint letter with KCG, all he was trying to do was convince the board to hold a hearing on the proposal, which also requires a certificate of public good.

And to do that, he added, you have to raise issues.

To that end, KCG argues that if the developers are unwilling to reveal how much electricity they plan to generate from the three sites, then there is no issue of public good, and the whole matter should revert to Act 250.

Mr. Kelly said Tuesday that an opinion on the jurisdictional argument is expected to be handed down Wednesday in time for the public hearing.

In looking ahead to the hearing, Mr. Rapaport said he expected opponents to come in force. As for the Brighton Selectmen, Mr. Merchant said the town’s position on the project will probably “depend a little bit on what we hear tomorrow night.”

Meanwhile the project already appears to have won the support from citizens of the Unorganized Towns and Gores (UTG), in which Ferdinand is a member. In a recent straw vote, all 20 of its registered voters unanimously approved it, according to David Lafoe, the chairman of the Board of Governors.

“I’m for it,” he said, adding that the verdict is still out among UTG’s 480 property owners.