Dear Editor,
Most of us have heard of the Paris Climate Action Accord. But as we talk with others, we find that hardly anyone knows that our National Forest is being targeted for destruction in the name of so called green energy.
Iberdrola, a Spanish global energy giant that has recently merged with a Connecticut utility and changed its name to Avangrid, is well on the way to destroying two ridgelines in Searsburg and Readsboro. Current data shows that 40 different bear use just one of these ridgelines. The current Searsburg wind towers measure 197 ft. The Deerfield proposal would erect 15 towers, each 417 feet tall, in our national forest, less than two miles from the George D. Aiken Wilderness. This would require five miles of industrial, upgraded roads through the forest (over a million square feet) in preparation for the large cleared areas that need to be blasted flat for the turbine bases. Most of the people we talk to don’t know of this or the dangerous precedent it sets for other national forest areas.
This is public land, our land, being turned over to private enterprise.
Dr. M. Sanjayan, executive vice president of Conservation International, recently reported that they think strong language protecting our forests will bring nature’s voice to the table. He indicated that “Nature is Speaking,” and protecting our forest amounts to 30 percent of the solution to climate change. Our governor, the U.S. Forest Service and agencies put in place to protect our ecology are moving us in the opposite and wrong direction!
Kathy Hepburn Halford, Wallingford
