Published on April 6, 2005

MONTPELIER — At some point in his testimony last week before the Public Service Board (PSB), Matt Rubin was asked by his lawyer why he was doing the East Mountain wind project at East Haven.

“I’m doing it because I believe in it,” said Mr. Rubin, the 64-year-old entrepreneur and president of East Haven Windfarm. “I’m not doing it to make any substantial amount of money.”

He said he likes the site that the 3,400-foot summit of East Mountain provides for a developer of wind power.

“If wind power works anywhere, it works here,” said Mr. Rubin, who if his project succeeds in obtaining a certificate of public good will become the state’s first independent power producer of wind.

It is a project he has been working on for years, and while the cost is not part of the public record, it is evident that the fight he has had to wage to bring it this far has been protracted and arduous.

“I didn’t think, frankly, that it would take this long,” he said from the stand.

Yet, despite the developer’s exasperation over the pace of the East Mountain project, wind was very much in the air at Montpelier last week.

Even as Mr. Rubin testified from the third floor of the Chittenden Bank, across the street in the State House lawmakers were finishing taking testimony on a bill that would force utilities to buy a certain amount of renewable energy in the near future. It’s a bill that would make it easier for renewable energy developers to find financial backing for the project as well as create a captive market for their power.

“The Renewables Portfolio Standard (RPS) uses market mechanisms to ensure that a growing percentage of electricity is produced from renewable sources like wind power,” says a pamphlet put out by the American Wind Energy Association.

The Senate already has passed a bill, which would require utilities by 2013 to have an energy mix in which renewables would account for up to 10 percent — or a percentage calculated on the basis of a utility’s growth from 2005 to 2013. And for the past few weeks, the House Committee on Natural Resources and Energy has been working feverishly on a version of it own. The committee is expected to take a vote on the bill in the next day or two.

So far 19 states have adopted a RPS requirement, which includes all the New England states except New Hampshire and Vermont. In neighboring New York, the RPS requirement is mandated at 25 percent by 2013. For developers of renewable energy, it’s a seller’s market.

But before wind can become Vermont’s latest commodity in the mix of natural resources it has to offer the marketplace, developers must win approval to build wind farms on ridgelines that are often above 2,500 feet in elevation. And on the stand last week, witness after witness testified how four 329-foot towers would affect wildlife, and how they would fit aesthetically in an area often cited for its rugged, natural scenery.

Experts in these hearings, whether they be biologists or meteorologists have displayed a common demeanor that says: That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Much of last week’s testimony concerned bats, and what kinds of risks the towers impose upon them. Research has discovered there are several different kinds of bats on East Mountain. Some are residents; some are migratory; and some are both, a distinction gained by those bats whose migratory patterns stay within 50 miles of their residence.

One conclusion the expert do agree on is that research on bats in the northeast is sketchy. Lack of data, in fact, when it comes to winged creatures and turbines has been one of the constant refrains in these hearings. The state, represented by the Agency of Natural Resources (ANR), wants another season of field studies before construction at the site gets under way. The applicant, meanwhile, maintains that such a study isn’t necessary and argues that construction and more avian studies can co-exist side by side.

The question, and the argument, among bat experts at this hearing, is how many bats will be killed by the rotating blades of the wind turbines. Essentially, it appears to come down to a question of how high do bats fly?

As the bat expert for East Haven Windfarm, Dr. Scott Reynolds testified that the risk of significant bat mortality is slight at East Mountain because of its high elevation. Dr. Reynolds argued that elevation influences the number of residential bats at any given site, and concluded that there would not be many at East Mountain.

Moreover, according to Dr. Reynolds’ testimony, there are also fewer female bats as elevation increases. Bats have one to three pups a year, but fewer females at a site means a smaller reproduction rate, he said.

As far as migratory bats go, he added, studies indicate they do not fly at elevations as high as East Mountain.

As the founder of a bat research company out of New Hampshire, Dr. Reynolds testified that the annual mortality rate in the east is roughly 46 bats per turbine, with the highest risk occurring among migratory bats. The rates are much higher in the east than the west, he added. And much higher than the national average.

The higher mortality rate prompted hearing officer Kurt Janson to ask if such a rate was significant to the bat population.

“It’s not the straw that breaks the camel’s back,” noted Dr. Reynolds, who is also a college and prep school teacher.

The conclusions offered by Dr. Reynolds were based on studies at other sites — a fact that grew in importance under cross examination from the attorney representing the Kingdom Commons Group, who opposed placing wind farms on ridgelines.

Norwich attorney Dan Hershenson wanted to know if there was any request to do a field study at East Mountain, or a protocol study.

Dr. Reynolds replied that the wind industry often has last minute needs, and it is not unusual to do work for them on the basis of a handshake rather than a more formal arrangement.

Using a study relied on by Dr. Reynolds, the attorney sought to show that the elevation ranges at East Mountain were similar to those on other mountains in the Northeast where the population of bats was found to be the greatest.

But Dr. Reynolds refused to allow the attorney or conflicting opinions from other experts to ruffle his feathers. “I have different conclusions from the same data,” he said.

If it were up to Scott Darling, he would recommend the formation of a working panel to study bat migrations, and look at the role seasons, temperature and wind play in bat migration. As the situation stands now, he testified, ANR is unable to make absolute conclusions on how turbines will affect bat mortality.

A wildlife biologist with the Department of Fish and Wildlife, Mr. Darling told the board that because of the project’s limited scale of four towers, much could be learned from a one-season pre-construction study, followed by a rigorous post-construction.

He called an annual mortality rate of 40 bats a year alarming, and noted there are no studies on the passage rate of migrating birds over East Mountain.

“Alarming is not a scientific term, I take it,” noted Mr. Hershenson as he probed for a number that might have a significant impact.

But Mr. Darling said it would be “difficult to draw a line in the sand” to determine how many bats could be lost to a turbine without having a significant impact on the individual species.

“We do have a responsibility to minimize this impact,” he said.

The regional plan characterized East Mountain as a rural area suited for logging and agricultural pursuits. Mr. Rubin characterized the 17 acres he owns at the summit as “a brownfield” due to the presence of dilapidated buildings left over from the days when the mountain was used at a U.S. Air Force radar base. Once erected, he added, the towers will become “part of the working landscape.”

Increasingly, the term working landscape has become a linchpin in the Windfarm argument that the towers will fit into the context of an area where logging and farming have been the traditional pursuits. Even the site itself, when it functioned as part of an early warning system for incoming Soviet intercontinental missiles, has a working history, albeit not a traditional one. But unlike most the landscape, the former radar base appears to have waste issues that go much further beyond the brownfield characterization provided by Mr. Rubin.

Shortly after the deal that brokered 133,000 acres of the Champion lands and distributed among U.S. Fish and Wildlife, the state of Vermont, and Essex Timber Company, the state took a look at East Mountain, which was also up for sale. As an island in the middle of land protected by conservation easement, it looked like it might make a good fit.

The for sale sign caught the attention of David Willard, a state forester working out of the St. Johnsbury office. In a recent interview, he said that in 30 years of service, the mountain was one of only two pieces of land that he has recommended the state acquire.

Mr. Willard’s recommendation struck a responsive chord in his superiors, and following a site visit in 2001, the state got an independent estimate of what it would cost to demolish the nine buildings on the summit.

Asbestos questions

In April of that year, a cost estimate of $261,275 was submitted by J&V Logging and Excavating of Danville. The contractor, however, hedged on the final cost after noting the presence of asbestos in samples taken from three of the buildings.

“The original estimate of demolition will be substantially changed due to these findings,” concluded contractor Jack Guldenschuh in an addendum attached to the message.

He also noted that no samples were collected from the lower barracks’ area.

The state’s overture eventually came to pass when the Department of Defense wouldn’t go along with a suggestion it foot the bill for the cleanup at the site.

The question of cleanup and contamination came around again when Windfarm contacted the state’s Hazardous Waste Division in January 2004 “for guidance regarding what, if any, additional investigation or corrective action work was required at the site,” according to testimony filed with the PSB by Brian Wood, an environmental analyst with ANR.

Last fall, the testimony continues, the Department of Health notified Mr. Wood “of the presence of asbestos in samples of materials (floor tiles and insulation) collected from the buildings in the mountaintop operation area.”

Mr. Wood went on to recommend that the issue of asbestos “needs to be addressed prior to the commencement of construction activities.”

His testimony concluded that construction activities would be possible at the summit once plans were in place to identify and deal with any hazardous substances, including asbestos.

The subject of asbestos came up last week with Mr. Rubin on the stand and being questioned by Vernon Gray of Burke, one of the active members of the Kingdom Commons Group.

“Are you surprised to learn your buildings contain so many forms of asbestos,” asked Mr. Gray.

“I am very surprised,” replied Mr. Rubin.

The hearings before the board continue this week.