I have seen many

There is certainly a debate about whether windmills are pretty things.

Those who get vocal about how lovely an art form windmills are may indeed be correct. The old windmills of the Netherlands are indeed charming. I have seen many of them.

I have also seen the modern 400-foot high windmills, which are arranged in a long line along the coast at the Waterworks, north of Zeeland. This construction took years and millions. It is exemplary. It is also located where people don't live, where there is no commerce or tourism. One can drive there and witness these marvelous machines.

They are graceful and interesting. They are however machines. At the Netherlands Waterworks they are in their place. They do not desecrate the landscape. They also have a distinct and enormous purpose, to prevent flooding, which in the past has cost thousands of lives. They also generate electricity.

This project was long and arduously thought through before construction commenced.

Combining windmills with the ridges of Vermont, our glorious and unequaled landscape, is an irresponsible idea. Placing windmills in farms of some size, so the maintenance comes at a more rational cost, is possible. But location, location, location. One more time location is the issue.

Like billboards, which indeed have the possibility to be art (banned by Vermont some years ago), windmills have a place where they are appropriate, and a place where they are not. We cannot allow the pocking of this state with a never-ending series of small windmill farms, irresponsibly placed, and of dubious economic merit. That would create an ecological blight, and an economic scam of the most horrendous sort. The people of Vermont can do better. We can demand that the state manage the energy policy for Vermont.