By Marcia Shaw

Guest Column

I am writing in reference to wind turbines. Really, I am writing about our community and what kind of community we want to pass on to the next generation.

We need to address the problems, not the symptoms. Wind turbines are a symptom, not the real problem.

At the open meeting in June (for the town of Meredith), speakers talked about how long they have lived in the area. Some have as little as a year, and they were as passionate as the ones who grew up here. My family has been here a bit longer.

The farm where my father grew up is now a U-Store-It just outside of Delhi. The farm where my mother grew up is now an art studio about three miles from my farm, which is where I grew up.

Both sides of my family have lived within 30 miles of where I am now since the 1800s.

Like so many of my generation, I moved away. I lived in Phoenix for a couple of years and Lehigh Valley, Pa., for almost 20 years.

I came back because I love the "ruralness" of this area; because both my parents passed away and this was the only way to hold onto all of their property; and because living here was supposed to be less stressful than where I had been.

Let me tell you a little about the Lehigh Valley. When I moved there in 1986, there were several small cities that had grown together: Allentown, Bethlehem and Whitehall. Now, Northampton to the north, Easton to the east, Quakertown to the south and Kutztown to the west have all grown together.

It is about 30 miles from Quakertown to Northampton and the same from Easton to Kutztown. This whole area is densely populated.

The growth was gradual for a while, but in recent years it exploded. I remember year after year, when I had to drive to Easton from Allentown, there would be cornfields in spring and building sites in fall. The people of that area were not paying attention to what was happening.

We need to pay attention, attention to keeping our small communities small and vibrant. Everyone who grew up here and stayed, or came back, or moved here came because they like the "ruralness."

The problem is not wind turbines. The problem is that it is hard to make a living in a small community. The problem is that Americans don’t employ a basic accounting tool called a "cost benefit analysis." We did not do this before becoming dependent on foreign oil. We did not do this when we started seeing just how big and inefficient we could build everything. We were not paying attention. Now we are playing catch-up, trying to be more efficient, but it is harder this way.

We are headed down the same road with our food. All those cornfields-turned-housing developments or business parks are not producing food anymore. I live about four miles from Delhi.

When I was a kid, there were at least eight working farms between here and town. Now there are fewer than four. I have heard that more and more of our food is coming from overseas or, in my opinion even worse, farm factories.

Someone was doing the cost benefit analysis there, but it was the big business guy, not the average consumer. This is the real problem. This is a farming community that can’t make a living farming.

So what do we do? Sell our farm land to developers _ no more please! Sell rights to our land to wind-turbine companies? It seems likely now but again _ No! How about finding a way to make farming more cost effective.

My dad was one of seven kids. Of the five boys, four were farmers. Those seven kids had around 20 kids _ I am the closest to a farmer in the family. I think our parents’ generation, more than any other, worked really hard to make sure their kids did not have to work so hard (Yes, yes, number crunching all day is draining, but not like milking cows or haying or rebuilding fence, etc.).

So, I am asking that we all pay attention, address the problem. I am a bookkeeper. One of my clients is a restaurant that sends envelopes of receipts to me. On occasion, they forget to take all the money out of the envelopes. Generally, it is just a nickel or dime but it has been as much as several hundred dollars.

I do not keep the change. Keeping a dime leads to keeping a dollar and so on. (I called right away about the several hundred dollars to ask if it was a bonus _ it wasn’t.) My point is that we can’t let one little thing that does not matter lead to a really big thing that will change us.

I did not like it when Delhi allowed fast-food restaurants. It changed us, it made us less rural. Sure it is easier to get a burger, but the burger is not as good. The benefit is easy access and the cost is quality.

If we don’t find a way to make life better for the people who make a living from the land, the "downtowns" of Meredith, Delhi, Treadwell and Hamden will all grow together with wind turbines on the hilltops and strip malls every two miles from Walton to Stamford.

It will be more convenient. We will be able to get pizza from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. We won’t be able to step onto our back porches without seeing the people across the alley on their back porches. All you people who moved here know what I mean. You become friends or put up solid fences.

I don’t have the answer to the problem. I can’t even figure out how to save my barn. But I know we have to pay attention. Do the cost benefit analysis for putting up turbines. Some money for some people now, for the permanent disfigurement of our landscape.

Wind turbines are fine, but put them where there is wind all the time _ the oceans; put them where the land has already been destroyed _ old coal mining areas. Don’t put them here.

We have to try to preserve our community.

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Marcia Shaw is a resident of the town of Meredith.