The logistics of snapping aerial photographs of Green Mountain Power’s Kingdom Community Wind project weren’t all that difficult, says amateur photographer Steve Wright. 

“I got in a plane … stuck my upper body out the window, and pushed the shutter,” says Wright, a Craftsbury resident who has pushed hard against the 21-turbine industrial wind project atop the Lowell mountains.

Easy enough, right? 

It’s what came after that was difficult for Wright to bear. He’s been hiking in the Lowell mountains since 1971, but now “this older body” prevents Wright from visiting. So he took to the air with pilots from Newport-based Lakeview Aviation to see for himself how construction for the ridgeline wind development had changed the once-familiar landscape.

“I was concentrating on the shots, and getting the shots, and that allowed me to work without losing it,” Wright says. “But I have to tell you, when we turned and headed back, I was choked up.”

Wright captured the bird’s-eye view of the development from between 500 and 1000 feet above the construction site, where GMP is rushing to complete the wind project by the end of the calendar year. Wright finds himself on one side of a fierce debate over wind power in Vermont that pits environmentalists worried about habitat destruction against environmentalists worried about renewable energy. Wright retired two years ago after a long career in environmental education, and says his long emotional connection to the Lowell mountains spurred him to action when he learned about the GMP project.

He took to the sky to document, Wright says, the extent to which the landscape is being altered to make way for wind turbines. 

“It’s my contention that the carbon emissions reduction and the amount of electricity that’s gained from these projects are not nearly worth the landscape alteration that occurs.” Wright says. “That’s based on my fundamental belief that the best climate change action that we can take in Vermont is to keep our landscape in one piece.”

Opponents of the Lowell project realize it’s too late to prevent development on their local ridgeline, but Wright hopes his photographs might help neighbors near other proposed projects — such as the Seneca Mountain project near Brighton and the Grandpa’s Knob project in Pittsford — think twice. He has another motivation for snapping the aerial photographs: Wright says some may be used to dispute trespassing charges brought against six protestors arrested for trespassing in December.

GMP spokesman Robert Dostis counters that Wright’s photographs only present a snapshot of a moment in time, and that much of the disturbed landscape will be revegetated after construction wraps up. 

“If you take pictures of an active construction site, it’s not going to look all that pretty,” says Dostis. “Once all the slopes have been revegetated, they will all be covered with green.”

Wright isn’t convinced that the trouble will end there. “When you cut a big road like that into an existing, intact ridgeline, you are altering the entire ecology of the system,” he says. 


Photographs by Steve Wright

This article appears in May 2-8, 2012.

Kathryn Flagg was a Seven Days staff writer from 2012 through 2015. She completed a fellowship in environmental journalism at Middlebury College, and her work has also appeared in the Addison County Independent, Wyoming Public Radio and Orion Magazine.

18 replies on “Wind Opponent Gets Bird’s-Eye View of Lowell Development”

  1. This is most sad, for next to nothing in electrical production, the area is desecrated.
    We have plenty of fossil fuels, and the “science” of “global warming” in non-definitive.
    What is definitive is what is seen above.
    Do you really thin Vermonter’s give a rat about their environmental desecration for nothing? I do…
     
    – When combined with resources from Canada and Mexico, the total recoverableoil in North America exceeds 1.7 trillion barrels. That’s more thanthe entire world has used in 150 years, and sufficient to fuel thepresent needs in the United States for the next 250 years.
    -In the last 30 years, the United States produced 77 billion barrels ofoil, which was more than 150 percent of the estimated reserves in1980. -The total amount of recoverable natural gas in North America isapproximately 4.2 quadrillion (4,244 trillion) cubic feet. That isenough natural gas in North America to last for the next 175 years atcurrent rates of consumption. – There is more recoverable natural gas in North America, Canada, and Mexicothan the combined proved reserves in Russia, Iran, Qatar, SaudiArabia, and Turkmenistan. -North America has more than 497 billion short tons of recoverable coal, ornearly three times as much as Russia, which has the world’s secondlargest reserves. In fact, North America’s recoverable coalresources are bigger than the five largest non-North Americancountries’ reserves combined (Russia, China, Australia, India,Ukraine.)
    -A scarcity of good policies, not a scarcity of energy, is responsiblefor U.S. energy insecurity. IER will preview the report during a weekly briefing at The HeritageFoundation in Washington D.C. at 12:00 noon on Tuesday, December 6,2011. watch a video presentation of the report’s central findings, clickhere.http://http://www.canadafreepress.com…

  2. You can’t justify a mistake by because of the frequency. Wind power is happing that is true but it doesn’t justify the mistake.

  3. What a shame because there is more than enough data that proves wind power doesn’t make enviromental or economic sense.
    Yet misguided-no,that is not accurate-lobbyguided politicians continue to waste our tax dollars. We endure far too much without complaint…….

  5. Am I a Nimby? You bet!! And Vermont is my backyard. I have said “NO” to the trashing of that backyard for almost 45 years. Five of those years was as a climate change educator, traveling all over the northeast trying to help people understand how to help allay the effects of advancing climate change.

    There is a solution to this conflict re the development of renewable energy sources, however, it requires that people take a deep breath and have an intelligent conversation.

    The first rule of effective climate change action is to protect intact and functioning natural systems. These systems provide the free ecological services that humans–and other critters–require. They are a bulwark against the very real climate change we are seeing. 
    Healthy natural systems help resist the forces of climate change.

    At the same time we are protecting these ecological functions we need to mount an aggressive effort toward solar generation of electricity.

    The last step requires an all-out effort toward structural energy efficiency and helping get people off fuel oil. This not only helps generate real jobs, it also reduces emissions from burning fossil fuels to heat our homes.

    This simple, straightforward approach would;
    1) Protect our landscape and its priceless ecological functions,
    2) Provide an adequate, reliable, reasonably-priced electric supply,
    3) Reduce carbon emissions in a significant fashion.

    That would be an effective initial strategy. Let’s get busy!!

  6. After three years working with Vermonters in their communities around mountains proposed for wind turbines, my experience is that Vermonters do not want to live around big wind turbines.  The issue is enormously destructive to the towns that are affected, and wind developers’ play book requires inciting division.  Steve Eisenberg of Reunion Power is currently engaging in textbook creation of uproar around his Grandpa’s Knob proposal, which Vermont’s ANR has already said to the developers would have an undue adverse effect on the environment.  That “vast majority” may live in Chittenden County.  I guess they will enjoy the Lake Champlain Wind Park, then.

  7. This is the standard response from the wind critics “don’t be so quick to judge”.  Kathy, we are educated, we know the issues, and we know the terrain.  Two wrongs don’t make a right so don’t stoop to those levels.  Time to face the hard facts that wind is happening in VT on a big scale, and the vast majority of vermonters want it and support it.  Even projects close to Burlington, just look at the top of bolton valley.

  8. People need to realize that bird deaths are a localized problem around wind turbines- certainly not pretty, but overall never a major issue in smaller developments such as these. Do you own a cat? Do you like to drive a car or live in a house with glass windows? These kill birds too, many many more than any wind turbines in the NEK ever will.

  9. Definitely not nimbyism.  (Do you know Steve Wright?)
    Number 1 threat is habitat destruction and hydrology disruption that could exacerbate any future Irene-type storm.  Vermont doesn’t have many intact habitats like this one.. and those that remain intact are being fast-tracked by other BIG WIND developers since we’ve failed to establish a moratorium.  Of coures they won’t be erected near Stowe or Burlington; they’ll go where the residents are mostly furred and feathered.

    Then there’s the rupturing of avian lungs as they get near the turbines.  The turbines used today are so big that they kill from a distance.

    Kudos to Steve for documenting what’s happening to the Lowell Mountains … and shame on those who blithely write off those fighting Big Wind in Vermont without having delved into just why they are so upset. 

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