The guest column is her attempt to gain support from Seattle voters to support a project that has been rejected by the Kittitas County Planning Commission, the Kittitas County Board of County Commissioners and now by the governor. For Patton to co-write the column with Helen Wise, a local resident and homeowner who has no dog in this hunt, is just another attempt for her "coalition" to force its agenda on the landowners who will have to live with it in Eastern Washington. It is a cheap shot for those who do not know the real issue.It is not about wind power, but where it is to be located. Imagine a string of 410-foot turbines along Rattlesnake Ridge to Issaquah.

The six-year battle around Cape Wind is clear evidence that this project is deeply flawed. The conflicts that its location in Nantucket Sound presents to our economy, our environment and public safety are irresolvable, and a better site for the project needs to be identified. It is disappointing to see an elected Cape and Islands representative, Matt Patrick, offer such unqualified support for a project that would come at a great cost to the constituents he represents. The time has come to seek a consensus on a site outside of Nantucket Sound where a wind project can be built without damaging such a venerated national attraction. We look to Patrick and others in the Legislature to take up the challenge and find a win-win scenario, so that real progress can be made toward siting a commercial scale offshore wind facility. People may turn a deaf ear to the bickering that characterizes the Cape Wind conflict, but they would welcome a win-win solution to the problem, if only politicians like Rep. Patrick would pave the way.

Audubon Pennsylvania and others concerned about bird habitat on the Susquehanna River are relieved that Norfolk Southern Corp. is no longer considering building a wind turbine at its Enola freight yard. It's particularly good news, they contend, for the state's only colony of great egrets on Wade Island north of Enola. ...This is a great example of why Pennsylvania needs a formal windmill-siting process that would include environmental and other research within a legal framework.

Another announcement of plans to build a large wind farm along a Pennsylvania ridgetop brings additional emphasis to the urgent need for the state to enact a windmill-siting protocol. Failure to do so threatens to dramatically alter Pennsylvania’s ridge and valley landscape to a degree not seen since the 19th-century lumber barons denuded Penn’s Woods.

I was at the Garrett County commissioners' June 24 public hearing on performance zoning, which can be used to prohibit industrial wind turbines on county ridgelines. Over two dozen residents spoke, many with raw emotion and obvious frustration over the lack of safeguards against this industry. Coming up with a way of regulating this now effectively unregulated industry should be a high priority with our elected officials. However, I am concerned that no one seems to be looking out for the property rights, health, and safety of those having to live or work next to such developments. ...Performance zoning would safeguard our basic human rights, our property, and our county's natural heritage from these intrusive, landscape-altering wind developments.

Your front page article on the proposal for more wind turbines in Fenland does indeed raise some serious questions for our local planning authority. Since the planning acts came into being in 1947, our local planning authority has, in the main, been successful in resisting developments in the countryside which would harm the visual amenity and special character of the Fenland landscape. However, when proposals for the gigantic wind turbines came about, it appeared to ignore all its previous policies for retaining the special character of our landscape and with no special policies for controlling both the number and siting of these massive turbine structures, it has given the turbine developers a free hand to develop wherever they wish.

At the eleventh hour and at the brink of hard-won success, Maritime Electric "ran the numbers" and decided the bypass they worked with us to secure was too expensive after all. At a meeting on Friday, April 20, I was told that the differential cost was about $75,000. This is approximately 2% of the cost for the entire transmission line expansion, estimated at about $3.75 million. According to government sources, it is less than one half of the amount they spent on a botanical analysis and environmental assessment process (required by provincial policy) to safeguard rare flora and ecologically unstable wetlands/streams. Less than $100, 000 to save a community, and Maritime Electric bows out of a year-long commitment. It beggars the imagination.

Governor Spitzer's energy team has drafted the language for Article X, which governs the siting of energy plants, including wind-turbine factories. Article X as drafted is seriously flawed and a betrayal of the governor's campaign promises.

To zone four more plots of land for this use without first seeing a wind turbine in production in Chatham-Kent is a gross error, in my humble opinion. An area close to Wheatley has already been zoned for wind energy. Based on my technical background, I think it is of vital importance to first see this up and running over a period of time before we move forward with these new proposals. ...Only by pressing pause on the present proposal can you find out what is best for your customers - the citizens of Chatham-Kent. Should the turbines be 500 meters or 750 meters from the nearest house based on their noise levels? Should they be one kilometre from shorelines like Essex County is discussing?

Our experience shows that there is a real noise problem, which can be severe. Unfortunately, it is clear that existing regulations are not adequate to protect people, and until this whole noise phenomenon is better understood and regulated we feel that Councils and wind developers should be exercising the Precautionary Principle. Large wind turbines should not be permitted close to residential areas.

What all this means is that residents who support changes to the reserve management plan don't really know what they are opening the door to. Those who oppose changing the reserve plan don't really know what they are shutting the door on.

There are scores of these applications in the pipeline which will, no doubt, be rejected by local people and possibly refused planning permission by local authorities only for permission to be granted by the Scottish Executive in a misguided attempt to be seen to be “green”.

Are you a property owner in the Southern Tier? Do you enjoy a summer home, recreational property, fishing, hunting or just like to get away from it all? Your country abode may be threatened by projects that directly affect your country peace and solitude. The towns of Eagle, Centerville and Farmersville are being eyed for 200 of the 400-feet high-wind turbines. Ridge tops will be clear cut and access roads built. Scenic vistas will be obliterated by the industrial-sized machines, making the "Enchanted Mountains of Cattaraugus County" a thing of the past.

But as the number of turbines grew into the hundreds and then the thousands, concern arose among residents, adjacent landowners and environmental groups. Wind power can be a viable method of producing electricity, and it is widely considered a clean, safe and reliable source of energy. However, it does have adverse effects in locations such as the San Gorgonio Pass, including the loss of developable land and danger to local wildlife. Wind-energy companies claim that they only use a fraction of the land, leaving the rest as open space. But in essence, modern wind-energy projects involve massive industrialization of undeveloped land. The newer turbines that have been installed in recent years are large, typically 100 meters (330 feet) tall. Indeed, some developers of future projects are proposing turbines that are 125 meters (410 feet) tall. Local homeowners and adjacent landowners are the ones immediately affected, and they are now very active in opposing any new wind-energy projects. Other opposing parties are residential developers and the city of Desert Hot Springs. The latter sees a tangible loss of developable land south of Pierson Boulevard, an area the city is considering annexing for future growth. In addition to the impact wind-energy projects have on land, the structures cause problems in the air as well. The tips of the turbine blades reach speeds of 200 mph to 300 mph, depending on wind speed, which can harm animals. As a result of studies in other areas, such as Altamont Pass near San Francisco, we know that wind-energy systems cause deaths among many species, particularly raptors, owls and other migratory birds. A major concern for environmental groups, including The Sierra Club, is bird and bat mortality.

The smugness with which the two abutters opposing the Hyannis Country Gardens wind turbine were met at a recent meeting by some planning board members and non-abutters was, to me, insulting.

Far from offering residents any real protection, this latest proposal will have the likely outcome of inviting smaller turbines, in larger numbers, that can still be legally sited in very close proximity to residents. Current zoning bylaws in Fairhaven permit citing turbines in every type of zone as a so-called municipal project.

So what are the true contributions of the wind industry? We have electricity that is too expensive to solve any real energy issues, and very little of it besides. We have little, if any, emissions reduction. We have the destruction of pristine landscapes and waterfronts all over the world due to the careless placement of massive, inefficient wind turbines… (a phenomenon that is just beginning to frighteningly snowball here in the U.S), and we have a big money making scheme for those who can afford to cash in. We also have one more thing… the deterioration in the quality of life for those unfortunate enough to find themselves and their neighborhoods targets of the uncaring developers who bully their way into communities and into people’s lives.

The citizens of Cape Vincent face a very serious moral and ethical dilemma. To the landowners who have lobbied their local officials to pursue wind development at the expense of those not interested, I pose these questions.

The PSB attached a number of conditions to their approval of the project. As the Ridge Protectors, a group of people who have opposed the project for years, say, the attached conditions contain potential deal breakers and they intend to fight the actual project to the bitter end. We are with them. The Sheffield voters, when they approved the project for an entirely illusory tax benefit, sold the Northeast Kingdom's birthright for a mess of pottage. Assuming The Ridge Protectors prevail and the project is stopped, these same voters, when they discover the taste of pottage, will be thanking them.

Since Criterion's filing with the PSC on Jan. 23, there have been at least three different versions of the application circulated by the PSC for public review. ...No document has ever been posted by the PSC showing the location of Criterion's 28 industrial wind turbines. The PSC's own instructions for these applications state, "Every effort will be made to process and approve your application expeditiously. The Commission will not, however, consider incomplete applications. The single largest cause of delay in processing applications is due to incompleteness". For some reason, the PSC is ignoring its own requirements and processing an application that any reasonable person would find incomplete.