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History Doing That Cyclical Thing Again

Blue_Ridge_Parkway_web.jpg
The Blue Ridge Parkway snakes around Grandfather Mountain near the Linn Cove Viaduct. Photo by Ken Thomas.

Here in Vermont there’s an interesting political race going on for governor, and it relates to our subject matter in that the contest might hinge, in some small but possibly significant way, on ridgetop wind turbines and the associated issues of renewable energy and land use and ecosystem health. In what is to some a quirky twist of political stereotypes, the Democrat in the race supports ridgetop wind installation and counts wind developers as donors, while the Republican has said he would ban ridgetop wind development and double down on solar and research into yet-to-be-perfected alternative energy technologies, like batteries capable of storing and distributing power on demand. Most Vermonters probably do not count wind energy as their primary motivation for going to the polls, but because the race is so close, and because a small but very passionate minority are single-issue voters, some pundits who know more about politics than I do are suggesting that the anti-wind vote could be what puts the Republican over the top. A recent letter to the editor in my local paper put it this way: “I usually vote Liberal Progressive Democrat...[but] I'll be voting the Green Mountain P(R)otection Party for Governor this time around, thank you very much.”

The whole thing reminds me a little bit of the debates over the Green Mountain Parkway that took place in Vermont 80 years ago. The Parkway was an ambitious New Deal idea that would have put unemployed people to work building a “skyline drive” across the spine and flank of the Green Mountains from one end of the state to the other; there was also a conservation component in that the road would have had a 1,000 foot right-of-way around it – the “park” in the parkway. If you’ve ever been to the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia, that’s what they wanted to do in Vermont. Proponents – many of them Roosevelt Democrats – said the project was going to create jobs, preserve the environment by putting more land under federal control, and keep young people in the state by giving them high-minded employment in log cabin rest stops, like the ones where Socrates used to work. (William Wilgus, one of the planners, wrote: “Along this lofty scenic route I envision year-round cultural, recreational, and spiritual centers, akin to those of ancient Greece, in which attractive occupations thereby offered young Vermonters would hold them to their native heath.”) Opponents included conservations like Aldo Leopold (“I can assure you that any desire on my part to revisit the Green Mountains would be forever canceled and destroyed if your state goes ahead with this road.”) and the Green Mountain Club – the group that created and maintains the Long Trail. But there was also resistance from anti-New Deal Republicans who resented big federal government programs and small business owners who didn’t want to see their businesses bypassed as tourists motored across the mountains.

Over the years, historians from across the political spectrum have weighed in on what the vote to reject the Green Mountain Parkway meant. Some hold that Vermonters were simply acting with fiscal-prudence by rejecting “quick fix” federal schemes. Others, lately, have been pushing revisionist interpretations that suggest the anti-Parkway vote had a provincial, even anti-Semitic component, and was more about keeping outsiders out. I find Hannah Silverstein’s take – published in a 1995 edition of Vermont History magazine – to be the fairest and most commonsensical. She concludes that: “Those who appreciated the aesthetics of the built environment had little trouble supporting the proposal to build a parkway . . . Vermonters who fought and voted against the parkway could not reconcile their ideal of ‘unspoiled’ nature with a permanent, artificial structure . . . If the battle were being fought today, the opponents’ arguments would be full of data about ecosystems and environmental impact, issues that concern more than the human world. Those arguments were not well formulated in the 1930s. Opinions about the parkway were mediated through individual beliefs about how nature and civilization should interact. For better or worse, Vermonters decided that a scenic parkway was not the best use of their mountain landscape.”

There are big differences, of course, between windmill development in 2016 and Parkway development in 1936. But I think Silverstein’s analysis remains relevant to at least some aspects of today’s wind debates.

Discussion *

Nov 05, 2016

And then there’s Interstate 91. What kind of hullaballoo occurred when that went in? Without it, our scenic state would have far fewer hikers, skiers, and tourists to appreciate it and bring their dollars to our perpetually struggling economy. It enabled some internal employment, too, both short and long term, meanwhile allowing residents to get to jobs and resources in other states more easily. But it’s an eco-unfriendly travesty to the landscape caused by government force and commercial interests, just like the skyline drive would have been and wind towers and solar farms are today. Would we be better off without it?

Carolyn
Oct 31, 2016

Destroying the tips of the oldest mountains in our land is unwise. Much sensitive and rare ecosystems are lost when turbines are erected. Renewable energy is an important issue, but at what cost?

MK
Oct 31, 2016

I am one the those lucky enough to have hiked the Long Trail just a few years ago.  I remember the few wind turbines in the south and wishing they weren’t there though understanding the supposed need for them.  I am also one the kucky ones that sees the forest for the trees and not for the dollar signs.  For any state to give up mother earths splendor for limited years of thoughtless gain is unfathomable.  I would encourage all Vermonters to not give away the jewels of their state with the simple stroke of the pencil.

Dave Coulter
Oct 29, 2016

When I was 12 years old and growing up in Duluth, Minnesota, my teacher asked the students in the class to choose a state to research. After studying the map, I confidently chose a state I knew very little about. I remember writing a letter to someone in Vermont requesting information about the little state. What I received when I opened the giant envelope was brochure after brochure filled with pictures of quaint villages, high peaked mountains, and fall foliage that even Minnesota could not compete. From that day on, Vermont found a place in my psyche. At 42 and a resident of New England for the past 18 years, I still hold that sincere fondness for a state I knew only in pictures as a child. Nine years ago, I traversed Vermont by foot as an LT NOBO. The pictures I saw as a child came alive for me. The wilderness was wild, calm, beautiful, and peaceful. I shutter at the thought of seeing giant windmills, dirt roads, fencing, communication towers, and electric cable lines crisscrossing the the very scene I fell in love with all those years ago. I am a huge proponent of renewable energy and vote for candidates that promote the cause, but the idea of losing something I love for an energy source that can be captured on the roofs of so many homes is not worth it. I encourage Vermonters to save the beauty that stills captures the minds of those who live elsewhere.

Michael Gow

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