Savoy and the surrounding area is now the prime target for wind developers since the Cape Wind project was rejected. Savoy is facing the most serious challenge in its 210-year history: the question of whether or not to include commercial industrial wind plants in its rural, agricultural, residential area.
Only an educated electorate can make responsible choices. Objective, credible information is needed on wind, as a renewable energy source globally and how it will impact our Northern Berkshires locally. Without that reality check, personal subjective interpretation alone will guide perception.
The list surrounding wind plants in the world, the state and the Berkshires is long i.e.: the financial picture, private property valuation and taxes, personal health, eminent domain, environmental impacts, wind plant power production and delivery, government subsidies to developers heavily underwritten by the common taxpayer, lucrative incentives to developers from commercial foreign and domestic investing, as well as profiteering landowners. Add the fact of nature that wind is not a reliable, controllable energy source and you have large profits to the investors,developers and land leasors for very small return of renewable energy. Is it worth it in the long run? No.
The financial picture is first on this list of issues for Savoy. Does Savoy need more money? One of Savoy’s pro wind plant assessors says either we let in the wind turbines or we must pay higher real estate taxes over the normal 2.5% yearly increase. This choice is given without knowing exactly what income will be from any wind plant in town. The developer, Minuteman Wind LLC, says that sum cannot be given unless Savoy approves their commercial/industrial wind plant first. Does the developer expect us to go ahead without the income figure, to buy a “pig in a poke”? These tactics, the threat of raising taxes and withholding town income figures, both are underhanded leverages for a pro wind agenda.
People need to know what is at stake so they can answer for themselves. The Savoy Mountain News
