The prospect of having three wind turbines on East Mountain does not daunt the town's selectmen. They were told of the possibility recently in a letter from the Vermont Public Power Supply Authority, board Chairman Kirwin Flanders said Tuesday. The town has been considered for a wind farm in the past, but so far nothing has happened.

A day after the developer of a proposed wind farm faced the public, several who attended the meeting said the discussion is far from over. Annette Smith, executive director of Vermonters for a Clean Environment, said she arrived at the forum in Tinmouth Monday night neutral, and said developer Per White-Hansen was off to a rough start. "He's already sent up a lot of red flags in an area that could embrace this if done right," she said.

Three days after announcing a deal with Burlington Electric Department, Vermont Wind LLC said Thursday that Vermont Electric Cooperative, Inc. has agreed to buy 50 percent of the Sheffield wind farm's power. Under the 20-year agreement, the utility will also purchase renewable energy certificates from the 40-megawatt wind project.

The Supreme Court ruling said the Public Service Board had proven its case at every turn, and that the claims of the Ridge Protectors were without merit in most instances, and did not offer evidence to cause reconsideration of the certificate's issuance. Paul Brouha of Sutton, one of the lead members of the Ridge Protectors, said Friday, "We're disappointed, that's certainly true. ...if they can put them in this pristine area, they can put them anywhere. So, we're really concerned with that."

The Vermont Public Service Board was right to issue a certificate of public good for a 16-turbine wind project on a Sheffield ridgeline, the Vermont Supreme Court ruled Friday. In its decision, the court said the board acted within its jurisdiction when it issued the certificate for the project being proposed by a company now called Vermont Wind LLC.

In a decision issued Friday, the court says the Public Service Board acted properly when it issued the certificate for the project being proposed by a company now called First Wind.

Green Mountain Power and Vermont Electric Cooperative are jointly exploring the construction of a wind power facility called Kingdom Community Wind on Lowell Mountain. ...Lowell Mountain's ridge lines, which rise above farm land west and south of Jay Peak, is within the co-operative's service area. VEC has been talking with Wileman about investing in a wind project on Lowell Mountain for at least several months.

A company working to install a wind-power project on Grandpa's Knob in Castleton is closing its Rutland office. ...In October, the Connecticut company laid off workers in New York and stopped work at two wind farms in that state in conection with the failure of Lehman Brothers, one of its chief backers.

The Select Board decided, on a 3-1 vote, to take no position Tuesday on a small-scale, temporary wind research project being proposed for Little Equinox. The project, which is before the state's Public Service Board, would construct an 80-foot residential wind turbine on the mountain for two years for testing purposes.

Bears and foreign conglomerates were among some the concerns citizens from in and around Readsboro brought to Green Mountain National Forest officials Wednesday night. ...The open house for receiving public input on the Deerfield Wind Project's Environmental Impact Statement was held at the Readsboro Central School's gym. National Forest officials had released a draft if the statement for public review and comment.

A Georgia family is preparing to seek state approval for three 400-foot wind turbines atop Georgia Mountain, the first commercial wind project to be proposed for Chittenden County. ...If all goes as planned, Georgia Mountain Community Wind will file an application with the state Public Service Board by Jan. 1. If the project wins approval, the turbines would be installed in 2010. The Harrisons' proposal differs from most of the dozen other wind projects in the Vermont pipeline.

Two public meetings on the proposed Deerfield Wind Project have been scheduled in November, according to Robert Bayer of the U.S. Forest Service. The first will be held on Nov. 5 at the Readsboro Elementary School and the second will be held on Nov. 6 in the Franklin Conference Center at the Howe Center. Both are from 6 to 8 p.m. Bayer said the sessions are part of the Forest Service's application process, which is in progress for Deerfield Wind, LLC, a limited liability company created by Iberdrola Renewable.

A Vermont-based company is planning to construct an 80-foot residential wind tower on Little Equinox this fall. Earth Turbines, a start-up in Williston that develops residential turbines, filed a joint petition Friday with Endless Energy Corp. and NRG Systems to the state's Public Service Board to erect the turbine and continue to use the 100-foot wind measurement tower already on the mountain. ...The town was notified along with adjoining property owners through the permit process. In the application, it states both the turbine and the tower "can be removed by Dec. 31, 2010."

Noble Environmental Power's local representative said the company is not pulling out of Rutland yet. Brad King, project manager of the Connecticut-based company that plans to build a wind farm on Grandpa's Knob, responded Friday to reports that the national financial crisis had caused the company to lay off workers and postpone projects in upstate New York.

Noble Environmental Power is having financial and legal difficulties, but it was unclear Thursday what that will mean for the proposed wind farm at Grandpa's Knob. New York media reported Thursday that Noble had laid off employees and stopped work at two planned wind farms there, linking the development to the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, one of the company's chief backers. Meanwhile, the New York Attorney General's Office announced in July it would subpoena Noble and another company developing wind farms in upstate New York as part of an investigation into a variety of allegations against the companies, including bribery and anticompetitive practices.

The Deerfield Wind Project was handed a setback when two state agencies weighed in on the recent U.S. Forest Service draft Environmental Impact Statement. As a result, the project now faces greater scrutiny in the application process for a certificate of public good. ...On Tuesday, the Deerfield Wind Project suffered another setback, this time with the application process. The Public Service Board granted a request to suspend hearings to allow concerned parties more time to review documents by the project's attorney.

The Vermont Public Service Board was to have opened hearings on Deerfield Wind on Monday, to collect evidence on whether the project should receive permission from the state. Opponents called for the postponement, telling the board that Deerfield Wind had waited until the end of the day Friday to provide them with what they called "an enormous overload of documents" about the project. ...The two-month delay is intended to give all parties an opportunity to review all the documents so they are prepared to fully respond to the information in them.

A public hearing on the revised town plan at the municipal building Thursday night drew a crowd, whose most vocal members wanted opposition to industrial wind projects reflected in the plan. Presented by the board of selectmen and Jay Dudley, chairman of the planning commission of Barton, about 130 people considered issues that ranged from law enforcement in town to the no. 1 question on most people's minds: how should the town plan for or against the harnessing of big wind?