As tourists arrive to appreciate this landscape for the first time, it is here that many also have their first encounter with modern, large-scale wind power production. Upon seeing that these facilities are not, as they are portrayed in numerous cartoon images on electrical bills, mere sets of three or four towers nestled into rolling glens, travelers' first impressions are often negative. Such encounters do not just hurt tourism in Texas but also renewable energy causes in tourists' own parts of the world.

How many people work inside an industrial wind turbine? How long do the construction jobs last post-project? This is industrialization of a vast area of land without many sustainable local jobs. Wind energy development on such a large scale will certainly seal the fate for the area. It is a life sentence which defines the land use for decades.

...to think that wind turbines are going to offer a long-term stimulus for tourism revenue is foolish. These giant wind turbines are a novelty to Michiganders right now. But as time goes by, the novelty will wear off. And as more and more wind turbines are built, there will be more and more people living here and paying the price for this "green" energy. ...and those living in the Thumb with these wind turbines towering over their homes will pay again in loss of property value and quality of life.

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 was an attempt to pave the way - almost literally - for energy companies to take advantage of pre-approved corridors that cut through public lands in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. The problem is that much of the land that would be pre-approved is in sensitive wildlife habitat and cherished wildlands. Routes were chosen more with an eye to economic efficiencies than environmental impacts, and the result is a plan that is blatantly skewed to favor the interests of the energy companies over the interests of the general public. ...The Energy Department recently released a draft of its Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement and will be accepting public comment on the statement until mid-February. It plans to hold a public meeting in Helena on Jan. 29, but you can provide your comments now by going to its Web site at corridoreis.anl.gov. We hope Montanans from all over the state will take the opportunity to firmly oppose the plan as it's currently proposed, because it will take all of Montana to sink this awful idea.

About "getting used to the turbines," I live under the existing eyesores. I have not, nor will I, get used to them. They are noisy, with constant whirring and intermittent clunks that I first mistook for gunshots. I can hear this inside my house with the windows shut. The proposed expansion will, by the developers' estimates, put the average noise level at my house at 44.9 dBA. The World Health Organization defines 45 dBA as unfit for human habitation. Several acres of my property, and that of dozens of neighbors, will be above this limit. I doubt that I would get used to that. Would you? ...There are better alternatives for electricity production. One is located right in Somerset. Vermont leads the nation (by a large margin) in percent of energy consumption from renewable sources. Adding more wind turbines would not alter that ratio, for reasons stated above. The turbines will not help our energy needs and don't belong in the National Forest. Let's keep it a forest.

Proponents of the Little Equinox Mountain wind facility say it will create jobs, create tax dollars, and enhance tourism. Your readers in Manchester, Vt. might be interested to know how that argument played out when FPL Energy similarly invaded our community in 2004