A temporary wind measurement tower erected on Susie's Peak has local officials crying foul over its placement. The tower, built by Vermont Community Wind Farm, was not placed at the site approved by the state Public Service Board, according to Clarendon Select Board Chairman Michael Klopchin. A small group of concerned residents used global positioning satellite equipment to pinpoint the location of the VCWF tower, he said.

Enel North America rang few bells in local energy circles last month when the firm announced its involvement in a proposed wind project in Ira. ...It's something Ira seems to want to know. Concerns that developer Per White-Hansen, who retains sole ownership of the project, might sell it off to another company have come up repeatedly at meetings about the proposal. Sennott said Enel will also provide capital and technical expertise to the Ira project.

Regional airport official have not taken a position on a developer's plan to install wind turbines atop Susie's Peak in Clarendon and Herrick Mountain in Ira. However, Vermont Community Wind Farm's proposal to construct the largest industrial wind facility in the state has certainly caught their attention.

Sitting shoulder to shoulder in the portrait room at the ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center, community members listened intently to panelists before engaging in a somewhat heated debate about windmills and nature. Lights were dimmed as images emerged of Don Quixote's jousting windmills and of dead bats to illustrate the wind-energy debate. The presentation, titled "Windmills: Viewed through the lens of art, science, and animal impact" included panelists Patrick Marold, Thomas Tailer and Scott Darling in this culminating event of a three-part series, "The Energy Project Vermont," a partnership between ECHO and Burlington City Arts with the support of University of Vermont.

The Department of Public Service agreed Thursday to support Entergy’s plan to spin off Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant into a new subsidiary called Enexus. In July, the DPS urged the Vermont Public Service Board not to issue a certificate of public good unless certain conditions were met. Those conditions included the status of the plant’s condenser and its back-up power transformer, the decommissioning fund, on-site spent fuel handling costs and a power purchase agreement.

An environmental court judge has dealt a setback to a wind energy developer that wants to build a project in the Northeast Kingdom. The judge has set a trial for December to hear arguments about whether the project complies with Vermont's water quality regulations. Parts of Judge Merideth Wright's ruling went in favor of First Wind, the company that wants to put the 16 turbines on a ridgeline in Sheffield. But when the judge focused on how the project will affect the water quality of high elevation streams, she handed the opponents a victory.

State officials have investigated complaints but found no evidence that a Lowell property owner was building a wind site access road before permits are in place. Officials with the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources said Friday that logger Trip Wileman was following his forestry plan in building a logging road on his property on Lowell Mountain. The property is where Green Mountain Power wants to raise three wind measurement towers and eventually a wind power development.

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 plan to erect some 60 windmills around nearby Herrick Mountain and Susie's Peak would ruin the precious scenery, say the town's residents. "Suddenly you're thrusting an industrial complex into what's really a rural residential neighborhood," said David Potter, who represents Ira in the Vermont House of Representatives. "In my opinion, [the windmills] don't fit."

A meteorological testing tower to be erected on Susie's Peak will face continued opposition from the town of Clarendon. The Select Board has filed documents with the state Public Service Board requesting authorities to reconsider a decision to issue a certificate of public good for Vermont Community Wind Farm to install the structure.

Europe's second-largest utility is investing in a proposed Ira wind farm, developers announced Tuesday. Vermont Community Wind Farm spokesman Jeffrey Wennberg said Enel North America, a subsidiary of Italian company Enel SpA, will provide capital and expertise to VCWF's effort to build an 85-megawatt wind farm in and around Ira.

A group of Ira residents say it may not be quite so clear which way the wind is blowing. Opposition has thus far dominated public discussion of a proposed 80-megawatt wind farm, most or all of which would be in Ira. However, a group calling itself Friends of Ira Wind has informally organized, saying the proposal has backers in town as well as detractors.

A proposed wind farm in and around Ira has cleared its first bureaucratic hurdle. The Public Service Board issued certificates of public good Friday allowing Vermont Community Wind Farm to place meteorological testing towers on Herrick Mountain in Ira and Susie's Peak in Clarendon.

Arguments over wind power can take on a “does not”/“does too” quality to the technically unschooled. Even the basic question of what the technology can do for the environment seems to get mired in contradictory claims. Can wind power displace fossil fuel consumption, thus reducing the amount of greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere? “Of course, that’s the point,” say the developers. “No it can’t, because …” reply anti-wind activists, before launching into explanations that sound arcane to those unfamiliar with the workings of the power grid. Whom to believe?

Green Mountain Power is continuing to investigate the possibility of a seventeen-turbine wind farm outside of Lowell Mountain, in Orleans County, Vermont. ... Dave Hallquist, CEO of VEC, ...acknowledged the "aesthetic issues" at play in the decision to build a wind farm. Hallquist said that since the billboard ban in 1968, he felt that Vermont had worked hard to preserve an open, rural image, and that he understood the need to maintain that image.

Vermont's energy future could become clearer in the coming months, with key decisions possible by year's end on the relicensing of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant and on the renewal of utilities' contracts with Hydro Quebec. Together, Yankee and HQ provide about two-thirds of the electricity currently consumed by Vermont residents and businesses.

Green Mountain Power is moving forward with plans to develop a wind farm in Lowell. The company is asking the Vermont Public Service Board for permission to measure wind in the Lowell Mountain range.

Who doesn't have a soft spot for a brimming, backwater lake or the misty cascades below a spillway? Who isn't transported back to the quaint, mill-spun days of early European settlement - and forward, to a low-carbon energy future? Short answer: It's complicated. Vermont's 78 hydropower dams are popular with many ecologists - and condemned by many others. The pros and cons have supplied a bracing charge of alternating current to Vermont's green movement. "It's hard to see people who are normally bedfellows in the environmental movement banging heads," said Jack Price, a habitat specialist.

New York's far-reaching investigation into allegations that wind developers paid local officials to approve their energy projects moved into the state of Vermont this week. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced Wednesday that his office issued a subpoena to Reunion Power, a wind energy developer with offices in Manchester Center and Hackensack, N.J., as part of its ongoing investigation.

The Select Board voted unanimously Monday to sign a 30-year lease with Vermont Community Wind Farm to put turbines on municipal forest land West Rutland owns in Ira. The company is seeking to build an 80-megawatt wind farm in and around Ira. In return, the company will pay the town a total of $3,000 for the three-year "development phase."