Tilting at windmills

By Eleanor Tillinghast12:00AM / Thursday, December 09, 2004Print Story | Email Story

A year from now, the third highest point in Massachusetts will be turbine 16 of the Hoosac wind power plant in the towns of Florida and Monroe. Only Mount Greylock and Saddle Ball will be higher. Seven of the Hoosac turbines will be among the 10 highest points in the state. Eleven will be above 3,000 feet. Enxco Inc. will build 20 wind turbines, each 340 feet tall, on two of our most visible mountains. It will cut more than 4 miles of new roads (some 35 feet wide) through forest, crossing more than a dozen streams and wetlands. The contours of both ridgelines will be cleared, blasted and filled to accommodate vehicles 135 feet long and weighing 197,000 pounds. The mountain range is a major migratory route for hawks, golden eagles and bald eagles. As scientists are discovering at similar sites, bats are also vulnerable to injury and death from turbine blades. Protected plant species are on the property. One stream flows into a pond that has wild brook trout. Hoosac is just the beginning. Wind turbines are planned for Brodie Mountain and proposed for Berlin and Lenox Mountains and the Hoosac range south of Enxcoâ€™s project. The Appalachian Mountain Club recently did a study showing that 65 sites on 96 miles of ridgeline in Massachusetts have sufficient wind for turbines. The sites range from a quarter-mile to 8 miles long. Of the 65 sites, 62 are in the Berkshires. The state secretary of environmental affairs has approved every inland wind power plant without requiring a full environmental review. She has refused to consider a statewide planning process for siting wind turbines. Now, she is preparing to open public lands for wind-power development. Why are Berkshire residents being asked to sacrifice our ridgelines, quality of life, and tourism economy for wind power plants? 1. The state requires wind power State law mandates that five years from now 4 percent of our energy use must come from new construction of renewable energy sources. If the Cape Wind power plant is built in Nantucket Sound, then about 200 turbines will have to be erected onshore. If Cape Wind is not built, then 480 turbines will be needed by the end of 2009. These numbers are boggling, but they are based on the stateâ€™s own projections. If you think weâ€™ll never see that many wind turbines here, look to the north and south of us and abroad: Communities all along the Appalachians are under siege. Vermont, with just 3 percent of its land suitable for wind-power development, has eight proposals under consideration. Within a 40-mile radius of the junction of Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Maryland, 18 wind power plants have been built or proposed. Within 20 miles of the now infamous 44-turbine Mountaineer facility in West Virginia, 333 turbines have been approved and 53 more planned. The United Kingdom has 1,184 turbines at 93 sites that collectively generate the amount of electricity of one midsized natural gas plant. Germany, roughly the size of New England, had 15,387 wind turbines at the end of 2003, which accounted for less than 4 percent of the countryâ€™s electrical usage. 2. Other people want to feel good Wind power plants here mean that people elsewhere in Massachusetts can embrace the technology without worrying about its impacts on their local economy or quality of life. Thereâ€™s not enough open space in Marblehead for turbines, but an official there noted that the town will buy wind power from the Brodie wind power plant in 2005. The mayor of Salem, who threatened to sue to stop the state from requiring new emissions controls in a â€œFilthy Fiveâ€ power plant in his city, has announced his support for renewable energy. Every person who signs up for GreenUp, GreenStart and other renewable-energy buying programs increases the pressure for wind power development in the Berkshires. 3. We support worthy goals We are being asked to sacrifice our wilderness to reduce global warming, pollution and dependence on foreign oil. These are vital goals that can be achieved much more successfully and at much less cost through proven energy efficiency and conservation programs and enforcement of clean-air laws. One regional environmental group has suggested that electricity savings from efficiency initiatives can be considered a new source of energy, costing less than any alternative supply. As just two examples: Kimberly-Clark Inc. improved its energy efficiency by 11.7 percent and saved enough fuel over three years to provide 700,000 homes with electricity for a year. A day after the Aug. 14, 2003 blackout, the regional grid operator paid 82 businesses in Connecticut to reduce energy consumption and within a 10-hour period saved enough power to supply 89,000 homes. A Swiss company is poised to build the St. Lawrence cement plant 16 miles west of our border, fueled by 500 million pounds of coal annually. If we really are concerned about air pollution, the more than $45 million in tax breaks, subsidies, incentives, guarantees and grants due to Enxco for Hoosac would be better spent helping polluters to upgrade emissions controls and suing federal and state agencies to crack down on violators. 4. Towns are losing state funds Over the past few years, state payments to towns have dropped drastically. That has meant severe budget shortfalls for communities like Florida and Monroe. Itâ€™s no wonder that Florida, which rejected a wind power plant proposal 20 years ago, now welcomes the promised tax and lease revenues. Enxco is a subsidiary of the EdF Group, 70 percent of which is owned by the French government, and is Europeâ€™s leading supplier of nuclear power, gas, coal and oil. The millions of dollars we will pay for Hoosac will benefit the French government while our local towns will receive a small fraction. We would do far better to use our money to help towns reduce energy consumption and reward their successes. 5. No protest from us Wind power plants will be sited in the Berkshires because we are not protesting against the onslaught. Elsewhere in the world, people are objecting vehemently to the construction of wind power plants. The news media in England, Scotland, Germany, Australia, and New Zealand report frequently on the protests waged by rural communities that have already experienced the desecration caused by wind power plants. Readers of Britainâ€™s Country Life magazine voted wind power plants the countryâ€™s number one eyesore. Der Spiegel, Germanyâ€™s largest weekly magazine, editorialized, â€œThe dream of environmentally friendly energy has turned into highly subsidized destruction of the countryside.â€ People across America, along the Appalachians, in Vermont and Maine, too, are fighting back. Berkshire County stands out in its welcome of wind power plants. 6. We are target of marketing blitz We are being wooed by a powerful alliance of the Romney administration, environmental groups and international corporations like General Electric and Enxco. The state has launched a marketing blitz â€” funded by monthly surcharges on our electric bills â€” to sway Berkshirites. Gov. Mitt Romney lobbied the White House against the Cape Wind proposal but supports the multiple wind power plants proposed for the Berkshires. Likewise, the secretary of environmental affairs has demanded full environmental reviews and an overall planning process for all offshore wind facilities but is enabling construction here without adequate assessments of impacts and consequences. In five years, we may have more 34-story structures on our mountains than any city in New England. We are being asked to sacrifice our small part of the world for a symbol that is unlikely to solve any of our regional, national or global problems. Eleanor Tillinghast of South County is president of Green Berkshires Inc. This article, with documentation backing the facts presented, can be found at www.GreenBerkshires.org

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Pittsfield Families Frustrated Over Unreleased PHS Report, Herberg Slur Incident

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff
05:38PM / Tuesday, May 19, 2026

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Parents are expressing their frustration with hate speech, bullying, and staff misconduct, which they said happens in Pittsfield schools.

Community members and some elected officials have consistently advocated for the release of the redacted Pittsfield High School investigation report, and a teacher being placed on leave for allegedly repeating racist and homophobic slurs sparked a community conversation about how Pittsfield Public Schools can address injustices.

The district's human resources director detailed the investigation processes during last week's School Committee meeting.

"People are angry. They feel like when they spoke up about Morningside School, it was closed anyway. They feel like they speak up about the PHS report, and that's just kind of getting shoved under the rug," resident Brenda Coddington said during public comment.

"I mean, when do people who actually voted for all of you, by the way, when does their voice and opinion count and matter? Because you can sit up here all day long and say that it does, but your actions, or rather lack of action, speak volumes."

Last month, School Committee member Ciara Batory demanded a date for the 2025 report's release to the public.

Three administrators and two teachers, past and present, were investigated by Bulkley Richardson and Gelinas LLP for a range of allegations that surfaced or re-surfaced at the end of 2024 after Pittsfield High's former dean of students was arrested and charged by the U.S. Attorney's Office for allegedly conspiring to traffic large quantities of cocaine in Western Massachusetts.

Executive summaries were released that concluded the claims of inappropriate conduct between teachers and students were "unsupported." Ward 7 Councilor Katherine Moody countered one of the unsupported determinations, writing on Facebook last week that she knows one person can conclude with confidence and a court case that pictures of the staff member's genitalia was sent to minors.

"During this investigation, we sought to determine the validity of allegations about PHS Administrator #2 sharing a photograph of female genitalia with PHS students on her Snapchat account," the final executive summary reads.