Iberdrola has proposed a wind energy facility to be erected on national forest lands in the Green Mountain National Forest located in Vermont. The Forest Service released the draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) in September 2008. The full DEIS can be accessed at http://www.windaction.org/documents/17983. The US Fish and Wildlife Service submitted comments on the DEIS. These comments can be downloaded by clicking on the link at the bottom of this page.

The Deerfield Wind Energy facility is the first wind plant to be proposed for US National Forest lands. The Draft Environmental Impact Statement released by the US Forest Service can be accessed by clicking on the link(s) below. Comments will be accepted through until the end of November 2008.

For those who think developers' feverish promotion of wind energy is about saving the planet, think again. The old adage follow the money explains their zeal much more than do its purported benefits. Worse, the enormous investment returns available to wind developers for an unreliable energy source that offers negligible emissions benefits stem largely from federal and state subsidies paid for by taxpayers and rate payers. Go figure.

If you really want to cut energy consumption, reduce pollution, improve public health and protect our environment, it’s time to contact your elected officials, educate them about the lessons of Denmark, Germany and elsewhere, and tell them you want tougher energy efficiency measures instead of wind power plants.
Otherwise, in the next few years, you’ll be looking at wind turbines in some of your favorite places, with the knowledge that they’re doing little more than funneling your tax dollars to a few lucky corporations and landowners, and away from better solutions.

...additional radar studies would be required to see if spring migration patterns are different than those measured in the fall. Typically spring migration is shorter than fall migration with fewer numbers in the shorter period of time. How this will affect the numbers of birds passing through the rotor swept volume is unknown. It is important to determine the seasonal timing, altitude and numbers of migrant birds passing over the proposed project site and the effects of weather upon their passage over a greater part of the whole year. In addition, it is possible to determine some of the bird and bat species passing through the project site by accoustical sensors to determine which species, that make vocal calls, are migrating through the site.

It is noteworthy that this study does not answer the basic question of how wind turbines affect property values. George Sterzinger, executive director of REPP, admitted as much in response to critics who stressed that the study contains no proof that wind farms were the reason for the changes in property values: “ We have no idea”…noting REPP did not have enough time or money to answer that question. (Cape Cod Times 6/20/03).