The Forest Service has compromised the integrity of the National Environmental Protection Act by selecting a person to draft its environmental impact statement (EIS) who was also working for the project developer, Iberdrola. Those who read the project's applications will find six relatively lengthy instances of plagiarism where the words of the developer's agent were used again verbatim for the EIS. This is a disturbing conflict of interest.

We shouldn't dynamite our mountain ridgelines to build a tool that can't achieve our carbon reduction objective. We shouldn't build power plants in the Kingdom when the demand is in Chittenden County. We shouldn't ignore the clear-cutting of hundreds of acres of trees that are our best carbon vacuum cleaners. We shouldn't allow runoff from miles of mountaintop roads and dozens of massive concrete base pads akin to any Wal-Mart parking lot. We shouldn't use a tool that kills off wildlife. How can anyone possibly justify such a tool receiving a permit to take endangered species?

We have all heard much about the concerns relating to industrial wind turbines on our ridgelines. Our governor wants us to install industrial wind turbines as fast as we can in order to reduce our carbon footprint and thereby slow the rate of climate change. Is the governor correct? Remove the "install industrial wind turbines" and substitute "do something prudent" and I agree. Is installing industrial wind turbines prudent?

We in New Hampshire will pay the price of having our scenic mountains covered in wind turbines while most of the profits go to an out-of-state developer and its investors. If you agree that New Hampshire's Lakes Region should be preserved, send a letter to your legislator today. There are already three industrial wind farms in operation now with another three under development in New Hampshire

There are thousands of wind opposition groups all over the world. The story is the same everywhere. The audible noise and inaudible low frequency and infrasound are driving people from their homes. People do not abandon their homes for no reason. Noise from these big machines can extend three to six miles in mountainous terrain, with residents within 2 miles most at risk.

The principal problem with the Iberdrola proposal is that it involves not one but 15 structures, each of which is far higher than the Bennington Battle Monument: 389 feet high to the tip of the blade. These would be not on a promontory but on top of a prominent ridgeline and would be seen for many miles and lighted at night for aviation safety.

This week, when confronting criticisms about industrial wind's assault of Vermont's mountains, he lashed out at critics, calling them "the committee against virtually everything." Vermont needs an urgent and informed debate for dealing with climate change. Yet it is hard to have such a discussion when Vermonters who adopt views contrary to the governor's are dismissed with an imperial wave of the hand.

If Shumlin is indeed seeking the best interests for our state and not pandering to paid-for-political power, he can and should reflect upon industrial wind under the circumspection of the economic, ecological, and social damage caused by the broken promises from Yankee. There is a better, more thoughtful choice. A choice that begins with an immediate moratorium on industrial wind.

What do these wind turbines represent? Opportunism, for one. In return for investing in the wind project, GMP will receive $44 million in federal production tax credits over 10 years. Environmentalists pushed hard for those incentives, and you can't blame entrepreneurs for leaping at them.

The heated debate over large-scale wind power development atop ridgelines is reason enough to take a second look at the process. Public Service Commissioner Elizabeth Miller agrees the current system might need to be updated. Miller told the Free Press, "It's not that the process isn't working now, but it was designed for far fewer projects at a different scale."

These bat species are far more important than First Wind's profits. There's presently a glut of generation in New England and First Wind's intermittent power does nothing more than add to the surplus on the grid. ...First Wind agreed to curtailment during low wind speeds at certain temperatures and now seems to be complaining that such curtailment won't be profitable. Too bad for them.

Shumlin stated that he listened to both sides and met with industrial wind opponents in Montpelier to hear their views. "An eight-minute meeting with a few people in your office is hardly engaging in a dialogue. Coming to the Town Offices and driving through town is not the same thing as going to the site and talking to neighbors in their homes," said Snelling.

This letter describes one man's determination to end his lease agreement with wind developer Reunion Power.

The company that installed the turbine, AAER of Canada, went bankrupt a year after installation, and left Portsmouth with no warranty. Even worse, the chief executive of the company hired to oversee maintenance of the turbine stated that gearbox failures occur in "10 percent of turbines nationwide".

Increasingly, however, it seems that people have made up their minds about wind. A large wind farm - with 20 or 200 large turbines - may fit well on the open plains of Texas, the Palouse of Washington state or the coast of Denmark. The close, intimate, untrammeled landscape of Vermont is not such a good fit. That is the message that wind developers are hearing. In the end their money may not do the trick.

Apparently, the state of Vermont in the form of the Public Service Board and Public Service Department is ready to roll out the red carpet for big corporations at the expense of Vermont citizens. Between the lines of all of the politically correct jargon, what I learned from this meeting was that the public had better aggressively advocate for themselves, because the state is not going to protect us adequately.

This letter was written by a landowner in Vermont who chose not to lease his land to wind developer Reunion Power.

In short, ridgeline wind is extremely destructive relative to the energy it provides, it is not cost effective and likely will never be, it does not have good overall resource potential in this region, and there are much better alternatives that do have a good cost and resource outlook.