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.â€
— 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.â€
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.
If you would like to contribute information on this article, contact us at info@iberkshires.com.
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North Adams Officials to Revote School Committee Members
Staff reports
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — City and school officials will meet a second time to vote in two new members of the School Committee.
The joint convention of the City Council and School Committee will be held on Tuesday at 6 p.m. in the City Hall conference room and via Zoom.
Damon Grimes and Paul Moriarty were jointly elected on Monday to fill two seats vacated by resignation. They were two of four candidates standing for election.
Mayor Jennifer Macksey, chair of the School Committee, said she had received in inquiry about the votes, which were done by secret ballot.
"I have been advised that voting by ballot was not permissible in this circumstance," she said, after consulting the School Committee's attorney Adam Dupere and city solicitor KP Law.
To ensure the validity of the votes and conduct of the election, the joint convention will reconvene and formally confirm the selection of Grimes and Moriarty.
"I apologize for the inconvenience of having to reconvene," the mayor said in a statement. "My intention in using a ballot was to address concerns raised following our previous convention, when some members expressed discomfort with publicly voting for or against individual candidates.
Senior Patrick Holland Saturday finished in fourth place to lead the Mount Greylock boys cross country team to a Western Massachusetts Class B Championship at Stanley Park. click for more
In a news release posted on its website tuesday morning, the Northwestern DA said, "prosecutors determined that no criminal conduct occurred," citing Massachusetts General Law Chapter 269, section 17. click for more
Everett Bayliss scored a pair of goals and Lukas Burrow had two assists in Sunday's Mount Greylock win in the Western Massachusetts Class C Championship Game. click for more
Gabe Thomas carded an even par round of 71 at Stockbridge Golf Club Monday to finish two shots clear of the field and claim the first county individual championship for the McCann Tech golf team. click for more
The Cooperative Hoosac Valley football program will resume football related activities on Monday, Sept. 28, after being on “pause” for the past nine days. click for more
Hoosac Valley High School has postponed this weekend’s football games following a reported alleged hazing incident involving a large number of football players, the athletic director announced Friday afternoon. click for more
