Quebec towns want to intervene over proposedvermont wind turbine
Three Quebec towns will apply for intervener status in the proposed Dairy Air Wind project in Holland, Vt. Holly Anderson, the deputy clerk for the Vermont Public Service Board (PSB), which regulates public utilities in the state, said in a telephone interview Wednesday, that Stanstead, Stanstead East, and Barnston West have notified the PSB of their intentions to file “motions of intervention.” They mistakenly filed “notices of intervention,” she said.
A wind energy developer has applied to the PSB for a certificate of public good to erect a single wind turbine on the Dairy Air Farm on School Road in Holland, about a mile from the Canadian border. David Blittersdorf is partnering with farm owners Brian and Kim Champney and Vermont Environmental Research Associates. The proposed turbine would be nearly 500 feet tall.
A scheduled site visit and public information hearing by the PSB had been scheduled for March 30, but was cancelled. Anderson said it has not yet been rescheduled.
A meteorological tower to measure wind has already been installed at the farm.
A big concern for Stanstead is the view, but Mayor Philippe Dutil said Wednesday that people are also worried about noise and vibration. And there’s the question of the International Water Company’s line from Holland Pond.
“We still use it in an emergency, like a fire,” he said.
“When one comes up,” Dutil said of the turbine proposal, “it’s a question of time before it’s full.”
Dutil threatened in 2012 to turn off the water to Beebe Plain, Vt. if a proposed turbine was erected in Derby Line.
The PSB has historically granted Canadian towns intervener status, Anderson said.
The Canadians aren’t the only ones concerned about the proposal. Most Holland taxpayers, and the selectboard oppose it.
David Snedeker, the executive director for the Northeastern Vermont Development Association (NVDA), the regional planning and economic development commission in northeastern Vermont, said Holland’s town plan does