The Newport Daily News

English

HELIN Digital Commons

Wind Energy Collaboration is Great Idea

DOCS@RWU

Roger Williams UniversityDOCS@RWUEast Bay Energy Consortium Documents East Bay/RWU Information Collaborative9-21-2010Wind Energy Collaboration is Great IdeaThe Newport Daily NewsFollow this and additional works at: http://docs.rwu.edu/ebecPart of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Commons, and the Environmental SciencesCommonsThis News Article is brought to you for free and open access by the East Bay/RWU Information Collaborative at DOCS@RWU. It has been acceptedfor inclusion in East Bay Energy Consortium Documents by an authorized administrator of DOCS@RWU. For more information, please contactmwu@rwu.edu.Recommended CitationThe Newport Daily News, "Wind Energy Collaboration is Great Idea" (2010). East Bay Energy Consortium Documents. Paper 27.http://docs.rwu.edu/ebec/27OPINION William F. Lucey III, publisherSheila Mullowney, executive editorGary Ruff, opinion page editor“Our view” represents the opinion of the editorial board, aboveSEND US YOUR LETTERSMail: Letters to the Editor, The Newport Daily NewsP.O. Box 420, Newport, RI 02840Fax: 849-3306E-mail: Editor@NewportRI.comPortsmouth School Committee showscommon sense in decision not to sueAfter attending the PortsmouthSchool Committee meeting Tuesdaynight, I came away with a sense of reliefthat common sense had finally pre-vailed. The chairman of the SchoolCommittee decided that it would not beprudent to sue the town of Portsmouthif the citizens of Portsmouth voted toreject the referendum to exceed thebudget on Oct. 5. The School Committeeagreed with him unanimously.It would seem that irrespective of thebudget issue, hiring an attorney whospecializes in Caruolo lawsuits was pre-mature, inappropriate and wasted fundsthat could better be spent on the educa-tion of our children.Other issues also on the agendaincluded the specific impact on the edu-cation of our children if the votersdecline to approve the referendum anddo not add $765,301 to the budgetapproved by the Town Council. ThePortsmouth school administration alsoprovided data relating to full-time equiv-alent personnel. All of these issues arecontentious and difficult to resolve, butnot addressing them is simply not anoption. Difficult problems usually getmore difficult when they are not dealtwith in a timely manner.So, I would like to commend theSchool Committee and school adminis-tration for the courage to finally bringthese issues forward.Virginia Bledsoe, PortsmouthR E A D E R S ’  L E T T E R SCRMC should hear opposition to proposed oyster farm in TivertonI am writing on behalf of the Nan-naquaket Neighborhood Association tobring attention to the status of the pro-posed 3-acre oyster farm in the south-west area of Nannaquaket Pond inSouth Tiverton, one of Tiverton’s littletreasures.The proposed farm’s dimensions are400 by 300 feet, about the size of two side-by-side football fields. There are six tonine trawl lines each having 50 to 100plastic mesh cages (4˝ feet by 2˝ by 3inches) floating on the water’s surfacewith an unknown number of markerand support buoys, a total of 300 to 900cages. From March to December eachcage will have hundreds or thousands of1-inch oysters growing to maturity for10-24 months.It is hard to believe that a large areasuch as this will not pose a safety riskfor such a highly used recreational area.This proposal also has conflicts withcommercial and recreational quahog-gers, who have historically fished thesegrounds; recreational boaters and swim-mers, who have enjoyed the pond forgenerations; and pond-area residentswho pay high taxes to live on and enjoythe scenic beauty of the pond.We have sent dozens of letters inopposition to the Coastal ResourcesManagement Council requesting a hear-ing. In addition, we have retained attor-ney Turner Scott, who formerly sat onthe CRMC for 10 years, and who haswritten a letter requesting a subcommit-tee hearing. We have dozens of signedaffidavits from the above-mentionedgroups.The Tiverton Town Council votedunanimously, 7-0, in opposition on May24.The Shellfish Advisory Panel (underthe state Department of EnvironmentalManagement) voted 4-2 in opposition onMay 27.The Marine Fisheries Council (underthe DEM) voted 3-2 in opposition on July12.However, in spite of some optimisticviews, our chances of stopping thiscalamity from happening are unknown.We need our government officials to sup-port us by writing letters to the directorof the CRMC, Grover Fugate, requestinga subcommittee meeting in Tiverton,something I understand the CRMC doesnot grant easily.If the oyster farm is approved, we willhave a permanent and hazardous uglyeyesore that will negatively affect thepristine beauty, property values andquality of life for the entire pond. It willbecome a completely private andrestricted area with a top and bottomlease for the leaseholders’ use only(which is transferable without goingthrough the formal application proce-dure). It will never be given back to thepublic. It is only for the financial benefitof two people, Peter Sebring of Bristoland Jim Duckett of Tiverton. The endproduct will be sold mostly in Bostonand there is zero benefit to the town ofTiverton.Jacqueline Mei, director,Nannaquaket Neighborhood AssociationO U R  V I E WWind energycollaborationis great ideaWhile much attention has been paid to proposalsto develop offshore wind farms in Rhode Islandwaters, a group of East Bay communities has beenworking together quietly to pursue options to buildan onshore wind farm to serve the region.This is a positive development in a number of ways.First and foremost, it isencouraging that nine munici-palities, including the localcommunities of Newport, Mid-dletown, Portsmouth, Tivertonand Little Compton, have beenmeeting regularly for morethan a year to discuss ways towork together to reduce energycosts and dependence on fossilfuels.And as individual wind tur-bines crop up around the coun-ty and the state, it becomesclearer that it is impractical forevery municipality to have itsown wind-power generator. “Wecan’t have a turbine at everyhigh school in the state,” KeithStokes, director of the state’sEconomic Development Corp.,said during the first “2020Vision” forum co-sponsored byThe Daily News and the New-port County Fund of The RhodeIsland Foundation.During the second “2020Vision” forum, Kenneth Payne,director of the state’s Office ofEnergy Resources, also pointedout that depending on one largecorporation to solve all of thestate’s energy needs is a dan-gerous proposition. Wind pow-er should be part of an overallenergy strategy that includesdiversifying sources andincreasing efficiency, he said.Yet, perhaps because its gen-erators are so visible, windenergy has become a focal pointfor discussions locally andstatewide.As communities debate howto regulate individual turbinesand where they could be appro-priately sited, the East BayEnergy Consortium has beendeveloping a proposal for awind farm of up to 10 turbinesin the Tiverton Industrial Parkthat would serve all nine munic-ipalities.The EDC and The RhodeIsland Foundation awarded$140,000 in funding to the con-sortium to hire Applied ScienceAssociates Inc. to study the via-bility of wind energy in theregion. In late April, the Tiver-ton Town Council approved theinstallation of a 150-foot-tallanemometer to collect winddata in the industrial park overthe next year.“All of this is very prelimi-nary, but I think it’s a very pos-itive idea economically and forthe environment,” said GarryPlunkett, who represents Tiver-ton on the consortium. “What-ever community ends up host-ing these turbines will makeadditional revenue from leasingthe property, and this is a sys-tem that ends up benefiting theregion, so everyone will see asignificant savings in their pow-er bills.” In Tiverton, where thestudy is focused, “it could helpdraw in new businesses becausewind turbines are certainlycompatible with any futuredevelopment in the industrialpark,” he said.The consortium sprung outof an energy summit held lastyear at Roger Williams Univer-sity in Bristol. Soon after hear-ing about the benefits of col-lectively pursuing “green” ener-gy projects, the five local com-munities signed a memoran-dum of agreement with Bar-rington, Bristol, East Provi-dence and Warren. The consor-tium meets twice a month andrecently issued a four-pagereport on its progress to mem-ber municipalities.Much remains to be deter-mined, including the size andscope of the proposed project aswell as the cost for participat-ing communities, but this is anexciting partnership, and welook forward to seeing whatbenefits it may reap. Jerry Holbert  Boston HeraldTUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2010   PAGE A9We welcome our readers’ views. Ourletters policy follows: Each letter must bear the writer’sfull name (no initials, please),signature, full address and telephonenumber (for verification purposesonly). We will not publish a letterwithout a phone number. We may condense letters, andcorrect errors of spelling andpunctuation. Letters should be no more than450 words. Proposed guest viewcolumns should be no more than 750words. Because of the volume of letterswe receive, we cannot always publishthem immediately. We will run no more than twoletters per author per month. SOMETHING TO SAY?TO GOThe third and final forumin the ‘2020 Vision’series will be heldWednesday from 5:30-7:30 p.m. at the PellCenter for InternationalRelations at Salve ReginaUniversity in Newport.The topic is educationand Deborah A. Gist,state commissioner ofelementary andsecondary education, willbe the keynote speaker.Participants will breakinto smaller groups toexplore subtopics andanswer a series ofquestions using anelectronic voting system.To reserve a seat, sendan e-mail toNCFEvent@RIFoundation.org (it is case sensitive)or call 427-4048.In case you missed it: Tosee coverage of previousforums and poll results,go towww.NewportDailyNews.com and click on the‘2020 Vision’ icon. If the oyster farm is approved,we will have a permanentand hazardous ugly eyesorethat will negatively affectthe pristine beauty, propertyvalues and quality of lifefor the entire pond.Rather than soaking the ‘rich,’ cut everyone’s taxesWhat should we do about endingthose Bush tax cuts? As you mayhave heard, those are the tax cutsthat let the richget away withoutpaying their fairshare of federalincome taxes andforce the middleclass to carry theburden of paying for the costs ofgovernment in Washington.I’m sure you all know that underour progressive tax system, the moremoney you make, the higher theincome tax rates you have to pay. Thepoor pay very little in income taxes.In fact, according to the IRS statis-tics for 2007, the bottom half of tax-payers paid 2.89 percent of all federalincome taxes collected. If your adjust-ed gross income in 2007 was $32,879 orless, you were in the bottom half.That means, of course, that 97 per-cent of the federal income tax bur-den fell upon the upper half of tax-payers. Those are the wealthy peoplemaking more than $32,879. This isthe wealthy half of the populationthat the politicians look to whenthey want to tax somebody.Well, actually what they say is thatthey aren’t going to tax the poorbecause the poor barely makeenough money to feed their kids andhave nothing left to pay taxes. Andthey don’t want to increase the taxburden on the middle class — thosehard-working men and women whoare struggling to pay the mortgageand educate their kids. They want tomake the rich pay their fair share.You’ve heard that speech before.So, who has an income that willenable them to help pay more? Well,$66,532 doesn’t sound like a rich per-son, but 75 percent of taxpayersreported an AGI less than $66,532.And they don’t pay much in taxes.The bottom 75 percent paid 13.41 per-cent of all income taxes.Remember that the politiciansdon’t want to increase taxes on themiddle class. So let’s take them out.Let’s say that an income between$66,532 and $113,018 is a middle-classincome and we’ll just increase taxeson those who make more than that.Ninety percent of taxpayers makeless than $113,018.It’s starting to seem like therearen’t very many of those rich folksleft to tax. And the top 10 percent isalready paying 71.22 percent of allfederal income taxes. If you are inthe top 10 percent, you are the targetof those tax-and-spend politicians.When do we really get to “soak therich”? If your income was more than$160,041, you made it to the top 5 per-cent, which paid 60.63 percent of allfederal income taxes. Think aboutthat for a minute. The top 5 percentof taxpayers paid a greater percent-age of all federal income taxes —60.63 percent — than the bottom 90percent, who paid 28.78 percent.Where are the really rich? At$410,096, you made it to the top 1 per-cent. Are they paying their fairshare? The top 1 percent paid 40.42percent of all federal income taxes;more than the bottom 95 percent,which paid 39.37 percent.Where are all those millionaires?How much do they pay?At $2.15 million, you made it to thetop one-tenth of 1 percent. The aver-age income for the taxpayers in thisgroup was $7.4 million and the aver-age federal income tax they eachpaid was $1.6 million. Together thisone-tenth of 1 percent of all taxpay-ers paid 20 percent of all federalincome taxes; that’s more than thebottom 75 percent paid. If we aregoing to depend upon these folks topay for what the government wantsto do for us, we’re going to need a fewmore millionaires.The real problem is not the distri-bution of the tax burden. The prob-lem is that the cost of government istoo high.We have to remember that it is us— all of us — who are paying for 100percent of the cost of government. Itis time to stop trying to shift the taxburden to the other guy and to startreducing the cost of it for all of us.Burke A. Christensen holds theRobert B. Morgan Chair of InsuranceStudies at Eastern KentuckyUniversity. Readers may write to himat EKU, 521 Lancaster Ave.,Richmond, Ky. 40475-3102.BURKE A.CHRISTENSENEastern KentuckyUniversityJeff Stahler  Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch

https://docs.rwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1027&amp;context=ebec

Wind Energy Collaboration is Great Idea

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

HELIN Digital Commons

DOCS@RWU