Wind turbine debate has caused a bitter divide

It was a hot afternoon, last day of June, and the sun was a demon. The clouds were afraid, One-ten in the shade, and the pavement was steaming.

JULY 15, 2010: The town of Hammond is a pretty place. But occasionally it is a pretty messed-up place, and that is saying a lot when you consider some of the messed-up places around the north country.

What has brought this about? The answer, my enemy, is blowing in the wind. Or as we say down South, ya' eitha' fah it or agin' it.

I thought Hammond might have hit rock bottom last December when outgoing Supervisor Janie G. Hollister, who favors the construction of a wind farm in the town, gave her farewell speech and noted, “I've been called unintelligent, but I can't help that. I've been called a liar, but I've done absolutely nothing wrong. And I've lost my church, but I will never lose my faith.”

Hollister told me a week or so after she made that comment that she and her family, longtime faithful members of the Hammond Presbyterian Church, just didn't feel welcome there anymore as so many members had become vocal opponents of the wind farm.

It isn't all about developing green energy for Hollister. She just thinks her town is going to need some green cash to cover the pending loss in tax revenue as more Hammond farms go out of business.

As for praying that everyone in Hammond will eventually lie down in green pastures, that will have to wait another day. The wind farm debate continues to rage. At this week's Hammond council meeting, Councilman James Langtry (pro-wind turbines) lashed out at Hollister's replacement, Supervisor Ronald Bertram (anti-wind turbines), telling him he "had no more backbone than a snake on the ground."

(For the record, human beings, including the subspecies of politicians, have 33 vertebrae compared to snakes, which have between 100 and 400 vertebrae. For a politician, having the backbone of a snake might actually be a good thing.)

Similar outbursts are now common along the Golden Crescent, which in part is why wind farm meetings are often standing room only. A wind farm meeting in Chaumont or Cape Vincent is often better than any reality TV show.

The debate over wind turbines has taken us to this ugly place in part because it offers no compromise. You are either going to have 400-foot-tall structures packed as tightly as their blades allow, or you are not going to have any. No matter how many times someone suggests that we all reason together, in the end we are a region divided, with both sides convinced that if they lose, they will lose all they love about the north country.

Whether wind farms come or not, the turbines have ensured that the venom now found in our communities will be here for years to come.