Seaway holds a lesson for wind farm planners

It was interesting to read the supplement published highlighting the 50th Anniversary of the St. Lawrence Seaway. Most enlightening was a comparison between the expectations of its consequences and the reality as we see it today. As with many large and complex undertaking the benefits were overstated and the costs, particularly environmental, were minimized. Then, as today, it is very difficult to think beyond tomorrow.

Given the outcome of the Seaway, it is hard not to draw a parallel with the rush to dot our countryside with 400-foot windmills. True, just as our forefathers had experience with locks and dams, so is there a body of experience with wind power.

The difference then and now is one of magnitude. Projects as large as the Seaway were rare as are large wind farm concentrations with 400-foot towers in environmentally sensitive regions. We have not yet come to an understanding of the impact of these installations on either the environment or the local economy.

The misjudgments associated with the creation of the Seaway should be a lesson to us to more carefully examine the creation of large-scale wind farms. Wouldn't we want a 50-year retrospective of wind energy in the north country to read more positively than we read about the Seaway?

Lee T. Hirschey

Hammond