Inherit the wind, Part IV: Politics and economics

Tela Zasloff, Advocate, March 17, 2005

[Reprinted with permission of the author. This is the fourth in a series of columns on wind power development in the Berkshires.
Ms. Zasloff, a writer living in Williamstown MA, frequently writes on environmental issues for The Advocate.]

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This is the last in a four-part series about wind power.

A group of Florida, Mass., residents are fighting the Romney administration on its approval of the Hoosac Wind power project for their region (to be built by enXco, a French-based company). They are under huge pressure from a larger group in town, who have been persuaded by enXco and other interested parties that putting up twenty 340-feet-high wind turbines over miles of their mountain tops will bring tax revenue and other economic advantages. Because the group resisting the Hoosac project believes that it will make a huge and destructive environmental impact, it is appealing to the state for a thorough environmental impact review before allowing this project to proceed.

And well it should. To build these turbines, at least 11 streams would be crossed and five wetlands would be filled by the 4.4 miles of new roads to be constructed and cleared. The road width would vary from 16 feet to 35 feet and would require extensive cut-and-fill operations to level the slopes and the ridge lines so that vehicles carrying the turbine parts can negotiate the mountains. EnXco, in order to argue that its road construction won't affect the wetlands, has simply redefined them out of existence. Environmental groups like MassAudubon and the Appalachian Mountain Club argue further that the project site is located within a remote, rural landscape near to areas containing some of the oldest-growth forest left in the state.

And what of the economic advantages being urged for the Hoosac project? In fact, wind power plants produce very little, and only intermittent electricity, at huge cost. EnXco estimates that building each turbine would cost $2 million, or a total of $40 million. That would result in heavy costs to us Berkshire County residents: $17 million from the Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust, which is funded by all state electricity ratepayers; a federal government production tax credit to wind power producers of $18 for every MW of electricity produced; a federal tax avoidance allowance that permits wind-power companies to fully write off all capital costs within six years, instead of the usual 15 or 20 for other electric plants.

Other significant costs that will be passed on to us ratepayers include the fact that, because wind power is only intermittent, we'll still have to use conventional fuels for base, peak and emergency demands. Further, as rate payers, we would eventually have to carry the costs of connecting the Hoosac Wind power plant to the regional electrical grid and for upgrading the local power lines to accommodate the intermittent, oscillating energy from wind. State and federal agencies are contracting with wind-power plants to buy electricity, which is another taxpayer subsidy because wind power costs more than other fuel sources. Finally, enXco has set up a limited liability company as owners of the Hoosac plant. When a federal allowance fully depreciates, the value of the plant in six years, the town of Florida would no longer be able to collect taxes on its value.

From the beginning of this wind-power push, powerful vested interests have been on the inside: General Electric and other corporations are lining up for massive subsidies, incentives and tax breaks offered by the state and federal governments; the former director of the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act (MEPA) is now an attorney for enXco; enXco's former finance director was on an advisory group of the Mass. Technology Collaborative (MTC) when it awarded enXco $17 million in future price supports. MTC is supporting wind-power development in the state through monthly surcharges on our electric bills. And Romney's just-announced budget for fiscal 2006 shows he is right in their pockets. He eliminates state taxpayer support for the Endangered Species Program, further reduces funding for the already strapped State Parks and Wetlands programs and betrays the Community Preservation Act by raiding its trust fund for protecting open space, affordable housing and historic preservation.

Local communities are also vested interests, for their whole lives. Unfortunately, most local people don't have the power and money to slow things down, demand hearings, be part of the decision-making, demand guarantees that their quality of life won't be destroyed. But on the wind-power issue, determined local communities have succeeded in doing just that - all over this country and in Europe. Article 97 of the Massachusetts State Constitution says that the conservation of natural resources is a right of the citizens of the commonwealth. That is where our discussion with the Romney administration should begin.