Earth and the Heavens: Inherit the Wind, Part I

By Tela ZasloffPrint Story | Email Story
This is the first in a series of columns on wind power development in the Berkshires. Next week: Which Gov. Romney do we believe? “He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind.” — Proverbs 11:29 Ten years ago, on the cover of Windpower Monthly, an international organ of the windpower community, appeared a full-color photograph of a bloody vulture cut in half by a windmill blade at a site in Tarifa, Spain. The journal editors explained the seriousness of their choice: “The decision to print this month’s cover ... will have a significant impact, both on the world of wind power and elsewhere ... There is a real problem with bird deaths at Tarifa. It cannot be kept quiet and it will not go away of its own accord ... There are parallels between the problems of raptors in the Altamont Pass [a California windpower site] and the Tarifa controversy.” The Altamont Pass windpower project, a 50-square-mile site in the Diablo Mountains between San Francisco and the agricultural Central Valley, was one of our country’s first, and it has been producing clean, renewable electricity for 20 years. But also, for 20 years, its huge fiberglass blades on more than 4,000 windmills, have been chopping up tens of thousands of birds, including migratory geese and ducks, raptors like red-tail hawks and owls and the world’s highest density of nesting golden eagles. The windmills pass along an international migratory bird route under government regulation, which puts the windpower companies at risk of federal prosecution. But despite over 20 years of studying this problem, the companies, environmental groups and the government have made very little progress in finding a remedy, and the size of the body count at Altamont remains at about 5,000 birds a year. One ecologist put it succinctly: “They didn’t realize it at the time, but it was just a really bad place to build a wind farm.” (USA Today, 1/2005) This colossal lack of planning and foresight, with such catastrophic results, is an example we can’t ignore here in the Berkshires, because very soon our own house is going to be troubled on the question of windpower sites: After opposing a windmill project in Nantucket Sound following pressure from local groups there, Gov. Mitt Romney, in early December, gave his support to windmill projects in Franklin and Berkshire counties — the Hoosac Wind Project — in which European-based enXco Company plans to build 20 windmills in Florida and Monroe, each 340 feet tall, on two of our most visible mountain tops. A second company, Berkshire Wind Power LLC, is poised to build 10 turbines in Hancock. Additional windpower sites are being planned by the Romney administration for Brodie Mountain and are being proposed for Berlin and Lenox mountains and more on the Hoosac range. Romney’s secretary of environmental affairs has approved every inland windpower project without asking for a complete review by environmental experts and is not considering setting up a statewide planning process for choosing the sites. (www.GreenBerkshires.org). Killing birds is not the only problem to be resolved in siting windpower projects. Other major dilemmas are that windpower hasn’t yet proven to be viable economically for a region; it is intermittent and not readily storable, and it is land intensive and destructive to the environment during and after it is built. But using mountain tops and the sky for gathering the wind is a question that has blood on it: Our mountain ranges are primary migratory routes for golden eagles, hawks, bald eagles — and generations of bats. Our communities are under pressure from the Romney administration and international power companies to accept these projects, but we need to talk first. Remember Altamont. Tela Zasloff, a writer living in Williamstown, frequently writes on environmental issues for The Advocate. Reader response is welcome via e-mail, news@advocateweekly.com, fax, 664-7900, or mail, the Advocate, 100 Main St., North Adams MA 01247.
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Lanesborough Fifth-Graders Win Snowplow Name Contest

LANESBOROUGH, Mass. — One of the snowplows for Highway District 1 has a new name: "The Blizzard Boss."
 
The name comes from teacher Gina Wagner's fifth-grade class at Lanesborough Elementary School. 
 
The state Department of Transportation announced the winners of the fourth annual "Name A Snowplow" contest on Monday. 
 
The department received entries from public elementary and middle school classrooms across the commonwealth to name the 12 MassDOT snowplows that will be in service during the 2025/2026 winter season. 
 
The purpose of the contest is to celebrate the snow and ice season and to recognize the hard work and dedication shown by public works employees and contractors during winter operations. 
 
"Thank you to all of the students who participated. Your creativity allows us to highlight to all, the importance of the work performed by our workforce," said  interim MassDOT Secretary Phil Eng.  
 
"Our workforce takes pride as they clear snow and ice, keeping our roads safe during adverse weather events for all that need to travel. ?To our contest winners and participants, know that you have added some fun to the serious take of operating plows. ?I'm proud of the skill and dedication from our crews and thank the public of the shared responsibility to slow down, give plows space and put safety first every time there is a winter weather event."
 
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