Across this great land of ours, from sea to friggn’ shining sea, people are starting to realize we have a few environmental issues to contend with. Dumping oil into storm water drains ain’t gonna cut it anymore. (I know it’s been hard for me too. I hate taking my used oil to Pep Boys.) One proposed solution is the use of alternate energy sources such as wind power. In the town of Cape Vincent New York on the St. Lawrence River, residents are considering doing their small part to help the environment, while simultaneously lining their pockets, by allowing a developer to install wind turbines along the river. Sitting here swilling my Miller Highlife at 7:30 in the morning just hours before my shift at the newspaper, I have a few thoughts on the proposed development.
First off, I'm not anti-wind power. I'm not anti-gun either, but I think both should be used with a modicum of forethought before somebody makes a decision that can’t be taken back. Don’t worry my doctor assures me that’s an appt metaphor. To the point though... there are serious problems with making the St. Lawrence River Valley the home for industrial wind power production. (The term wind farm is cute, but let’s face it, it’s an industrial site, not a bucolic pasture.)
Placed in their proposed location these turbines will almost certainly have a negative impact on the river environment. The towers will stand out like a stripper in Church if the developers get their proposed set backs of a quarter of a mile from the river and a view shed can be a beautiful thing. Now on the other hand, some people I’ve chatted with say they’ve seen hundreds of turbines in Holland and they look just swell. But guys come on, the reason a ton of people live and play in the St. Lawrence is that it doesn’t look like a densely populated European urban landscape – Boldt Castle aside. Didn’t Thoreau or Ed Abbey or Doug Peacock or some shit head say something about America needing wilderness? And I think those guys are supposed to be smart.
But beyond the view there’s another big problem. Ornithologists who supported the Lewis County New York wind turbine project reject the St. Lawrence River Valley as a potential site because those towers and spinning blades will kill the hell out of migrating birds. It’ll be a God damned massacre. A bird lover and legitimate science typ guy told me that ridges running north south, especially the most important flyway for bird migration on the east coast, are bad sites for wind plants and east west running ridges like the Flat Branch project in Lewis County are good sites. Furthermore, Cape Vincent is a shitty place for a farm because song birds, raptors and water fowl hug the shorelines of the river and lake on their trips south during the fall and again on their way back north during the spring. I’m sure the power company has a study that shows otherwise, but the power company might not be the objective source we’re looking for here.
Some granola chewing friends of mine argue that even though some birds will be killed and the valley will take another step toward looking like a European metropolis, we need this ”wind farm” to help prevent global climate change. Let’s think about this for a second. What percentage of the nation's electricity comes from wind power? According to a recent LA Times article, less than 1 percent. So what impact will the wind turbines in Cape Vincent have on reducing carbon emissions? Zero. Like a fly shit on an elephant’s ass. The LA Times quoted an anti-wind researcher saying that: “Converting 5 percent (of national energy consumption) to wind would require almost 10 million acres, most of it rural and wild, turned over to 400-foot-high machines and their motion, noise and lights.”
The power company wants Cape Vincent residents to believe this is an urgent matter and there’s no time for lengthy consideration.
The other night I had a couple of drinks at Captain Jacks in Cape Vincent with one power company executive, who, in reality, doesn’t exist. He pounded his fist on the bar once he realized the two of us just didn’t see eye to eye on the issue.
“Sea levels are rising and if we don’t make get a few hundred wind towers up soon, we’ll be flooded out,” he said. The exec casually dismissed the argument about wind not producing enough juice to make a difference. “God just wants a good show of faith that we’re on the right path and then he’ll ease down the thermostat. But Jesus age Christ the real reason we need these ffffing towers is to stop the Godless Arab hordes. Those oil glutted terrorists will slit the throats of three out of four children in the next 10 years if we don’t do something soon. You know, the only thing they fear is renewable energy.”
So I guess what I’m trying to get at here is that producing energy, even wind power, has unintended consequences, much like staying up all night drinking and writing vulgar e-mails to minor local celebrities who you know will take the time to read through their “fan mail.” I am now late for work and seemed like just hours ago it was 4:30 a.m. In closing, Hollywood is leading us down a moral sewer…
Wilderness is an anchor to windward. Knowing it is there, we can also know that we are still a rich nation, tending our resources as we should--not a people in despair searching every last nook and cranny of our land for a board of lumber, a barrel of oil, a blade of grass, or a tank of water."- Senator Clinton P. Anderson of New Mexico in American Forests, July 1963
Here’s a link to the LA Times article:
http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2007/04/03/news/regional/e17d2ba89394e772872572b100672340.txt 
