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Green Berkshires supports, first and foremost, the reduction of energy consumption through efficiency and conservation measures. This is the priority of the Massachusetts Green Communities Act which stipulates that “electric…needs shall first be met through all available energy efficiency and demand reduction resources that are cost effective or less expensive than supply.”


Once all of those have been achieved, Green Berkshires looks forward to the responsible development of renewable energy sources.


So far, however, proposals for wind and biomass facilities in western Massachusetts have been permitted by state agencies with inadequate environmental reviews and safeguards.


The Berkshires have become ground zero for onshore wind development in Massachusetts. The governor has set a goal of 2,000 MW of wind turbines by the year 2020. That’s just 10 years away. At present, the state has less than 20 MW of wind turbines.


The strongest wind resources in Massachusetts are offshore. However, the first plan to develop 130 wind turbines in Nantucket Sound has been delayed by legal challenges, and many people believe that similar development schemes offshore would encounter the same objections.


Land along the coast also has high wind speeds, but those areas are heavily populated and have high property values. Consequently, although one or two turbines may be constructed here or there, the potential for wind power plants is low.


This leaves the Berkshires as the place with the most wind onshore. By national standards, the wind speeds are low for industrial wind development, but with the governor’s pressure, and the lavish state and federal subsidies, the government and the wind industry are collaborating to force development in the Berkshires.


Using its vast financial, marketing, and lawmaking resources, the Patrick administration is pushing industrial wind development on many fronts in the Berkshires, but one of its priorities is to enact the Wind Energy Reform Siting Act, which will remove local zoning control over the location of industrial wind turbines and their associated infrastructure.


Green Berkshires has taken the position that although there may be some places where wind turbines might be appropriate — such as for farm or residential use, on previously developed land, in large open regions where vegetation and wildlife would not be affected, and far offshore – the destructive impacts to forested ridgelines, wildlife, neighborhoods, recreation, and the regional economy that are being observed in communities with industrial wind facilities elsewhere are too great to warrant the tremendous subsidies and overriding of Home Rule.


Green Berkshires is leading the effort to educate Massachusetts residents, visitors, and elected officials about the experiences of towns in other states that have allowed industrial wind developments, and the ramifications of the collusion between the Patrick administration and wind industry to force wind power plants into the Berkshires.



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