Wind power doesn't merit free ride

Tad Ames, Berkshire Eagle, April 19, 2005

[Reprinted with permission of the author. Tad Ames is president of the Berkshire Natural Resources Council.]

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To the Editor of THE EAGLE:

The Brodie Mountain wind power project may have met all its regulatory requirements [In Brief, April 15], but the threshold for review on this and other wind proposals in the Berkshires is obscenely low. The Brodie proponents, along with their brethren on the Hoosac Range, have done their best to avoid providing any hard information on the damage these projects will do to the streams, wetlands, flora and fauna at fragile high elevations. On Brodie, 10 years have been consumed by legal and zoning questions -- and hardly a shred of ecological information has surfaced in that time.

The rush to develop wind energy comes as a result of generous tax incentives that provide great rewards for exceptionally slender energy production, and the complete absence of any comprehensive siting or planning process. While the proposed Cape Wind project is examined with a fine-tooth comb by both state and federal regulators, projects in the politically depopulated Berkshires are waved through.

The possibilities of wind energy are intriguing, but this form of "renewable" power has serious environmental impacts. Before every good, green-thinking citizen of the Berkshires rushes to embrace wind power, we should demand a fair accounting of the relative costs and benefits of these mountaintop power plants. It is possible to examine the promises made by the big power companies behind these projects without compromising one's principles.

TAD AMES

Pittsfield, April 15, 2005