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Clarendon, state clash on wind



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By SANDI SWITZER HERALD CORRESPONDENT - Published: October 3, 2009

CLARENDON — Municipal officials believe the state ought to consider electing rather than appointing members of the Public Service Board, to ensure citizens have a voice in what goes on in their communities.

The state board has come under local fire recently after approving certificates of public good for wind measurement towers to be located on mountain tops in Ira and Clarendon.

The project's developer, Vermont Community Wind Farm, has proposed erecting wind turbines on Herrick Mountain in Ira and Susie's Peak in Clarendon as part of the largest wind turbine project in the state.

The Clarendon Select Board has filed a motion asking the PSB to reconsider its decision, and town officials even debated whether to take the matter all the way to the Vermont Supreme Court.

Some members of the Select Board have expressed concerns that because PSB officials are appointed rather than elected, they do not necessarily represent the views of citizens impacted by such large-scale projects.

"These are three unelected Public Service Board officials who don't answer to the people," Select Board Chairman Michael Klopchin said in a recent board meeting.

Klopchin noted the PSB members may have rendered a different decision had they been accountable to voters.

The chairman further noted citizens of Clarendon had spent years drafting, adopting and amending local ordinances and town plans as blueprints for the community's future.

He noted the 197-foot wind measurement tower would not adhere to zoning's 35-foot height restrictions and would be prohibited in the agricultural and rural residential zone.

"We are very disturbed that the town has spent years getting this ordinance together and they just arbitrarily throw it out the window," Klopchin said at a recent board meeting.

The Clarendon Select Board has agreed to invite all Rutland County legislators to a breakfast meeting at the Clarendon Grange Community Center in October in order to share their concerns.








READER COMMENTS


well now we see what the voters have accomplished pushing a bunch of radical newcomers to Vermont's house and senate.They are there to accept pac money and big payoff's from special interest groups from far away.They will vote the state down the drain..Is it TIME to make changes in the house and senate? I think so but we need sound thinking long time Vermonter's to step up a stand for election..not campaign.. Remember Herb Ogdon?
-- Posted by bruce meyer on Sun, Oct 4, 2009, 10:03 am EST

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Put the blame where it belongs and that is on our Legislators for passing these renewable energy bills that will raise all of our electric bills during a recession. Why are you blaming the PSB for carrying out the wishes of the Legislature. Apperently the Legislature is carrying out the wishes of their constituents or is it the wishes of the big money from renewable energy philanthropists?
-- Posted by Jim Eckhardt on Sat, Oct 3, 2009, 11:30 am EST

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Its amazing how complacent people are about the well planned assault by the wind industry on the mountains of New England. Within 5 years there will not be a horizon in Maine, New Hamphire, or Vermont that is not filled with "large, kinetic sculptures that would make Christo jealous" as Maine wind developer Rob Gardiner refers to them.

Sadly, if the tax dollars targeted to subsidize Maine's goal of 2700 MW (1800 turbines on 360 miles of ridgeline for an insignificant 4% of the electricity needs of the NE grid*) were instead directed toward conservation and efficiency projects, each household in Maine would be eligible for $14,000 in incentives, and 35,000 construction jobs would be created for the next ten years insulating, upgrading heating systems, replacing windows, etc.** Instead we will ruin the mountains, kill the tourism industry that drives the rural economy, put thousands of forest industry workers out of work as biomass plants make way for wind power, and create only a handful of full time jobs maintaining turbines.

Wind power is a scam of outrageous proportions, being promulgated by powerful interests such as General Electric, which owns NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, and The Weather Channel. Self serving commercials showing turbines in green prairies with no homes in sight reinforce the public perception of wind power as good and green and benign. Nothing could be further from the truth.

New England is about to be sacrificed to this gluttonous industry. The only thing that will stop it is quick action by the legislatures of the New England states to amend the recently passed "climate change" legislation that not only paves the way for wind power, it mandates it, and makes wind projects practically bullet proof against a challenge.



*2700 MW installed capacity = 675 MW at 25% capacity factor achieved by wind turbines. The grid operates at about 16,000 MW on an average basis. 675/16,000 = 4.5%
** According to VCWF, mountain top wind costs $2 million per MW. 2700 MW = $5.4 billion plus $1.5 billion for transmission lines. The cost of generation from wind turbines is more than $100 per MW while electricity is selling for about $35 per MW in the day ahead New England power pool market, which means that 2/3 of the cost of wind power must be subsidized just to break even.
-- Posted by Stephen Thurston on Sat, Oct 3, 2009, 10:20 am EST

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Clarendon is right to complain that their zoning laws are being ignored by the appointed PSB who are arrogantly implementing laws passed by our elected legislature that mandate inefficient, unreliable industrial wind turbines.

The 248 process at the PSB is undemocratic. Votes by towns opposing big wind are considered non binding, property rights are ignored, and so-called "renewable energy" projects are held to a lower standard than others. The process is a predetermined charade as the board favors evidence presented by developers consultants who will say whatever they are paid to say. Opposing parties have to try to disprove the bogus claims of the wind developer whose high priced lawyers manipulate the process to stifle any real examination of the facts.
The PSB always rules in favor of utilities and developers, and are backed up by the appointed members of the Supreme Court.
No one would allow a generating plant to be built on our ridgelines, so why should inefficient, ugly, enviromentally destructive wind projects, that works less than 25% of the time, be permitted?
The big wind scam is being driven by misguided political correctness and greed.
And please let's stop calling these industrial developements "farms" and especially "community farms".
-- Posted by rob pforzheimer on Sat, Oct 3, 2009, 9:33 am EST

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