Two speakers said wind towers need to be a safe distance from homes and another said they do not need to be in Vermont during a forum Thursday. Vermonters for a Clean Environment organized the meeting at West Rutland Town Hall in light of the proposal of Vermont Community Wind Farm to build an 80-megawatt development in and around Ira. VCE executive director Annette Smith moderated the meeting.

The neighbors gathered in Dan and Tina FitzGerald's kitchen had a list of grievances about five wind turbines proposed for the mountain in his backyard. The list began with this: A fear their voices will not be listened to. "We feel there is a tremendous amount of money stacked up against us," said Darlene Ross, who would have a view of the turbines from her home on Arrowhead Lake.

Blades have begun to turn on 121 wind turbines here and in neighboring Ellenburg, a 35-minute drive northwest of Plattsburgh. Saturday, they turned with a soft whush, whush, whush. "Whush, whush, whush, all day long, all night long - I moved here because it was so peaceful and quiet," groused Allen Barcombe as he pointed to the nearest tower, jutting up 400 feet into the sky behind his house. ...The New York turbines, in two projects developed by Noble Environmental Power, are the first of nearly 400 expected to go up in five towns on a windy plateau just south of the Canadian border. When completed, the development about 90 minutes from Burlington will represent the largest concentration of wind turbines in the eastern United States.

The idea of windmills brings to mind bucolic Renaissance paintings of Dutch landscapes and tulip beds. But that's hardly the experience of some who have to live next to the 400-foot electricity-generating giants being built across America's breezy plains.

Where can the project be seen from? Will it be in the viewer's foreground or background? Will the viewer likely to be stationary or moving? Will the project offend the sensibilities of the average person? When viewed as a whole, is the project offensive or shocking, because it is out of character with its surroundings, or will it significantly diminish the scenic qualities of the area? These will be addressed by the Public Service Board.