I took a run this weekend over to Ellenburg and Clinton, N.Y., to see 121 wind turbines at work. These are the 400-foot behemoths installed over the fall and winter by Noble Environmental Power. They're the first of nearly 400 towers planned for this windy stretch of scrub and farmland just south of the Canadian border. We've been arguing about wind energy in Vermont for more than five years now. ... Only two conclusions were inescapable: First, a wind project undoubtedly transforms the landscape, for better or worse. Second, seeing a wind "farm" at work won't settle the argument over "better or worse."

A recent letter about the Jordanville Wind Project oversimplifies the opposition of the Holy Trinity Monastery and others to the location of the proposed wind farm. The monks are not selfishly choosing serenity over clean energy. Rather, their concerns speak to a larger issue: the impact of industrial-scale wind turbine projects on New York's historic, scenic and cultural resources. In fact, the Preservation League of New York State named the Holy Trinity Monastery to our Seven to Save list of endangered places this month in part to call attention to the need for statewide siting standards for wind energy projects.

I have been a resident in the town of Arkwright for almost 10 years. In my opinion, the town board meeting was not an indication of "the community coming together." A community is not together because the town supervisor declares that to the local media to sway public opinion. A community does not come together when proposing ideas and addressing important concerns to the leaders of our town is looked at as "confrontational questions" and "obvious objections." This is not about who agrees with wind power and who disagrees with wind power. The community is divided because Horizon is a huge company, no longer an American company, that has come into a small town with landowners desperate for money, in a society that no longer supports local farming, and a town board basing decisions on financial gains and nothing more. The result: 47 gigantic wind towers up to 330 feet and a turbine size of up to 300 feet, in an area that was considered residential/agricultural a year ago and has since been switched over to industrial zoning.

In Enfield, developer John Rancich has proposed building 10-12 wind mills on Connecticut Hill. The wind farm proposal is controversial, to say the least. About 50 people packed a public hearing recently about a town proposal to limit where wind farms can be placed in relation to the nearest road. The hearing came amid allegations of previously secret meetings that violated the state's open meetings law. Rancich contends the "setback proposal," as it is known in Enfield, will wipe out his plans for a wind farm. All of this tension makes you wonder if a wind farm is worth it. We have neighbor fighting neighbor and governments under stress to regulate something they are not familiar with. The end result is the building of large structures that could, if placed in the wrong spot, disrupt our county's landscape. That said, we aren't opposed to wind farms. We just want them placed in the right locations.

Does the Town of Enfield have the right to construct an industrial site that will harm a neighboring municipality? Who will defend the rights of Hector and Catharine residents to clean water and an unpolluted lake? These are issues that must be confronted now, before the pollution occurs. Enfield, Catharine and Hector must address these issues immediately and put in place wind farm statutes and regulations that respect each other's lives, borders and rights as neighbors. We all can appreciate the need for cleaner energy. However, we do not have the right to expose our neighboring municipalities to the drainage, runoff pollution and threat to water tables (not to mention the health effects of the noise and shadow-flicker) that will accompany Enfield's industrial wind farm.

Each time I've visited the Maple Ridge Wind Farm I've become more depressed about wind energy development. I could never seem to reconcile the professed benefits of these projects with their obvious adverse impacts. But today I learned the most valuable reason to oppose this industry. The Maple Ridge project site is 12 miles long by 3 miles wide. Up and down the roads we went today and I viewed this industrial power facility once again. In viewing the entire expanse of impacted area I couldn't help but notice that there was no sense of a living community - no routine life. No people walking their dogs, no hikers, no bicyclers, no children laughing and playing (school was out), no clothes hanging out to dry, no school buses, no dogs barking, and very few birds, no one on their four wheelers on their own lands enjoying the open air. There were no roadside stands selling pumpkins. The serenity of rural community life that we all know and love here in northern Jefferson County was strangely absent. In its stead, we saw massive machines everywhere we looked, on both sides of the road. This was Bill Moore's world and PPM literally owned it all.

A controversial proposed site for the placement of a wind farm in Enfield is the focus of public concern and debate. The issue in Enfield is not "green local energy." The primary issue is the responsible location and safe placement of commercial windmills (400 feet tall) and wind farms.

So I sit on my front porch wondering what this countryside will look like in the years to come. Will red lights that top off towers be across the horizon? Will there be a distinction at all between country and city? Will the stars forever disappear? Or will we all end up in darkness?

Gordon Yancey of Martinsburg, N.Y., (about 55 miles northeast of Syracuse) ...owns Flat Rock Inn on Tug Hill, where 195 nearby windmills spin in the breeze, make noise, throw ice from the blades in winter and drive away the snowmobile and ATV riders who are his main customers. The 400-foot-high towers don't attract tourists, but instead lure rubberneckers, Yancey says. "They drive up the road, look at that these things, get out of their cars and take some pictures and then drive away." Yancey says. "They don't stay and spend their money here." Curious people may find the windmills interesting the first time they see them, Yancey says. "But by the second and third time, they realize how truly ugly and distasteful they are...

...All this, and the promise of quick money, effectively silences all voices of reason in the debate that will bring the most drastic change some communities will ever experience. Why? Because wind companies know that their shining green (dollars) exterior is simply a facade which quickly unravels upon critical examination.

As a veteran of the wind turbine war over East Hill in Cherry Valley, I have advice for residents of Fulton and Richmondville.

Town officials who want to find out about wind power should book a room at the Flat Rock Inn in Tug Hill, in the midst of New York's largest wind plant, which has more than 150, 400-foot-high turbines. If they like the look during the day and the sound at night, they should come back and tell their constituents that the current proposal for wind power is just perfect. We, however, disagree. Yes, wind power is a wonderful solution to our energy problems but, like many good things, it can become a bad thing when used irresponsibly. Wind power plants must be carefully and responsibly sited and operated. The proposal as it stands is unsatisfactory and would seriously harm our community.

What we have around here is wind. But the idealistic, pastoral vision we once might have had of Dutch boys playing along the dikes with wooden windmills churning in the background, or mountain ridges adorned with them for miles as if pickets in a giant fence, no longer exists. That vision has been corrupted by the realities of what those large-turbine contraptions mean for the people who live - or could live - near them.

Much of upstate New York, from north of Albany to Buffalo, from the Catskills to the Adirondacks, is in danger of being transformed beyond recognition by industrial wind parks. Some 50 of these wind parks are being planned and even built. All of this is being done in the name of clean energy and saving the planet. But it isn't clear that wind power is such a panacea in the battle against global warming that developers of these wind parks should be allowed to run roughshod over some of our loveliest land. What we need are statewide siting guidelines that take other environmental factors, including visual impacts, into consideration.

Moresville Energy Center in Stamford (fronting for Invenergy LLC), encouraging placing industrial wind turbines, or IWTs, in the Catskills, is running advertisements promoting these 420-foot monsters as opportunities for children to experience “a cleaner tomorrow.” Its incentive comes from indecisiveness by town supervisors hesitating, even though their citizens have spoken out against IWTs. One supervisor stands out against a sea of poor leadership and courage: Tom Garretson of Cherry Valley. The Freeman’s Journal in Cooperstown, applauding Mr. Garretson’s efforts against Reunion Power, wrote: “A freshman town supervisor, he firmly and courteously followed the logic of facts in the face of resistance from his family, his political mentor and longtime friends and associates.” The battle continues today in Andes, Bovina, Roxbury, Stamford, Meredith and Walton. Will there be a town supervisor strong enough to listen to the people and follow Tom Garretson’s lead?

Does it make sense to trust a company that: 1) had no idea it was planning to build in a karst landscape until informed by interested private citizens; 2) now proposes inadequate safeguards to address the problem; and 3) continues to put out rank misinformation such as the weight of the turbines? Is this a track record people feel comfortable with in a company that wants to make huge, irreversible changes in the local landscape?

Their potential for power contribution to the grid, compared with fossil, hydro or nuclear, will be miniscule, but their contribution to landscape desecration will be immense. Casting both light and shadow over the entire scene, however, are the two potential wild cards of beaucoup loot for a lot of people and a significant amount of political prestige for a few. So, to arms!

The public needs to hear all of the FACTS and if it appears that the project could be detrimental in any way than it should not be constructed.

From an environmental standpoint, wind power creates a huge paradox. It does provide “clean fuel” benefits, but wind turbines also exact a heavy toll on the surrounding area. I recently traveled through the Carbondale section of Pennsylvania. Wind turbines have been allowed to flourish there. They are not simply part of the landscape. They are the landscape. Pure and simple, the wind turbines clearly, eerily dominate everything in that area.

The decision to drastically alter our landscape will affect our quality of life, our wallets, and our grandchildren.