As a tourist who visits the area, I notice what is transparent to most locals, and for me the skyline of Fairhaven is priceless. If the citizens of Fairhaven allow the wind power project to be built at the current proposed location, I believe you will be making a terrible mistake. The town may gain some money in taxes and offset some electrical energy costs, but it will not offset the loss in green space and, more importantly, the beauty of Fairhaven's historic charm.

No matter how important wind power is, not every spot is suitable for a turbine. Conversely, a turbine's visibility from the homes of frustrated neighbors doesn't make its location wrong...........Residents should also take a look at the video expected to be released today by opponents of the Little Bay project on their Web site, WindWiseFairhaven.com. It will document complaints of people who live near the Hull turbines.

Few are aware of the staggering profit by way of contracts payable to avian specialists in an industry borne from wind towers that kill birds. This service industry is referred to as "Adaptive Management," and/or "long-term environmental monitoring." Its value is $2 million to $3 million first year startup for a wind project, based on the value of Altamont, Calif., wind tower monitoring contracts. These contracts represent $1 million per year paid to the monitor during construction phase, and impose terms as Mass Audubon has in their "Challenge" press release: "We also propose adoption of an Adaptive Management Plan that includes a rigorous monitoring program beginning at the construction phase and continuing for at least three years post-construction." ..........Mass Audubon is in a position to profit by counting bird carcasses, "monitoring," while attempting to "solve" this problem; the industry term for this is "mitigation," if Cape Wind is permitted and construction begins.

The ongoing expansion of wind power is an intrusion into the countryside, with a extent and effect comparable with the 1900s expansion of hydro power in the rivers in north Sweden. Wind turbines have a significant visual impact on landscape and the anxiety that they create must be taken seriously. There has been no serious research into how they affect people. It can almost be considered a violation of human rights when local opinions are met with indifference by government authorities.

If common sense prevails, Salem will abandon this out-of-scale, clearly inappropriate location for such an enormous commercial-industrial wind turbine immediately. If not, then the City Council should exercise its legislative authority and vote it down.

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 applied a couple of years ago, using a consultant, for a grant to help with the installation of solar panels on one of our buildings. ...After all of this preparation we were notified that the grant would not be given due to lack of funds. However, it was suggested that since there were few requests for wind turbines, we likely would get a grant.

I walked on my normal walk in the woods one day and looked up to the top of the mountain. Just several months before it had been a picturesque view of wilderness beauty ... the kind that attracts tourists and creates much of the state's income. Now, it was lined with these tall mechanical monsters, towering over the trees of an old forest. I am not talking about the quaint and charming windmills of Holland here, we are talking about metal and flashing lights and a size that miniaturizes the grand forest beneath it.

I am a sporting camp owner in the town of Highland Plantation. Our town is the site of a proposed industrial wind power facility. I am concerned about the future of the wildlands of Maine, as well as our town, since the number and scale of wind power proposals likely will affect all the mountains of Maine, leaving not a single place free of a view of 400-foot turbines.

If wind energy was the one practical and affordable answer to global warming then I would grit my teeth at the loss of the countryside and accept it. But I know that they are no answer to global warming in northern Europe. The Germans who have invested more than anyone in this form of energy are finding, according to newspaper Der Spiegel, that despite more than 17,000 wind turbines across Germany the nation is now emitting more CO2 than before it built them.

So Price intends to build this project no matter how the town votes -- no surprise. Why shouldn't he be confident? After all, his uncle, Selectman Ron Price, is running the show. Wake up, folks, and see what's happening to our town. Don't believe their promise that three turbines is the end of it. CES would not buy up more land and run 10 miles of heavy duty transmission lines for just three turbines. Freedom has sold out for the faint hope of some tax dollars -- and it's just a hope. Franklin County has a tax agreement with the developer - - so did Mars Hill. Not Freedom!

Residents raised those exact concerns months ago before the turbine was built, but their worries were dismissed by a stack of reports and experts who said those problems, if they existed at all, would be so insignificant, that no one would notice. And what's troubling about all the experts and turbine proponents being so far off the mark on these issues is the fact that most were equally dismissive about concerns the neighbors have raised about safety.

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.

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.

For many, wind energy here translates into the long, continuing battle over a 130-turbine wind farm proposed for Nantucket Sound. But more turbines are planned on land and potentially for additional offshore sites. And for Cape Codders who are not yet aware of this - or of the ramifications for families, homeowners and communities - the assembly's action is a welcome second chance to get up to speed and have a voice in whether turbines will continue to sprout up all over the Cape.

NIMBYism is the default invective hurled these days when anyone raises valid questions about what's being sold, but name-calling and threatened boycotts are cheap shots when the stakes are so high. After all, just how GREEN is this technology really? Who amongst us is sufficiently schooled on the true efficiency and safety of giant wind turbines? I've seen them stretched across dry, treeless land abutting freeways and thought, "now there's a good use of unpopulated, barren landscape," but frankly, I don't know much about them.

I returned to Wyoming last summer after a 10-month trip. Arriving home, I was surprised and dismayed to see that tall, futuristic-appearing windmills had popped up in various parts of the Cowboy State ...the idea of windmills has not received thorough analysis. Willy-nilly construction of windmills is filled with unintended consequences harmful to Wyoming and other states in the Rocky Mountain West.

It's not tiny turbines that could disrupt the quality of life and the viewshed. It's those monstrous, industrial-size wind farms. Easy to sit here and think about how neat it would be to have Virginia show renewable energy leadership by putting a bunch of huge windmills off the coast, isn't it? But what about a wind farm in the George Washington National Forest in Nelson County?

That natural treasure, which we voted to protect one generation ago, is once again in jeopardy. Once again the citizens of Maine need to let their voices be heard, and once again step forward and say "no" to a proposal to place a massive industrial wind complex on the very doorstep, and just a few short miles from the southeast corner of the Bigelow Preserve.

Recently I hiked up to the top of Lowell Ridge to see where 21, 400-foot wind towers will be placed. As I crested the mountain I came face to face with an energy policy that is at war with itself. The environmental destruction taking place there pits those seeking to reverse climate change against those who wish to preserve Vermont's pristine natural resources.