NOTES FROM THE HINTERLAND
IN MY BACKYARD
By Laurie Meunier Graves
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables
one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.
—Benjamin Franklin
1.
THE NEW MEXICO CONNECTION
The slender rods stand tall against the dark sky. There are many of them,
and they stretch across the horizon. They are in plain view, and there is no
attempt to hide them. In fact, that would be defeating the purpose because
these lightning rods are an art installation in a desert in New Mexico, and
the artist Walter de Maria created it.
I have never seen this installation. I’ve only seen pictures of it in the
New York Times Magazine, and in the accompanying article, I read that
the “handful of devotees trekking to the New Mexican desert year after year
[adds] up to a blockbuster crowd.”
2.
THE NANTUCKET CONNECTION
The proposed assemblage of slender rods stands tall against the deep blue
sky. All around them is the open space of water; sometimes it will be rough
and sometimes it will be calm, but it will always be a visible reminder of
humans coming together with nature.
Am I describing the newest Walter de Maria installation? A public work of
art that a rich patron will subsidize? I am not. Instead, I am describing a
project proposed by James Gordon and his Cape Wind Associates—130 steel
windmills in Nantucket Sound. According to an article in the New York
Times Magazine, these windmills are projected to provide the people of
Cape Cod with “75 percent of their electricity…without emitting a single
microgram of greenhouse gases [or] carbon dioxide…and without burning a
single barrel of Middle Eastern oil.”
You might think that all the people of Cape Cod would be clamoring for such
a project, but if so, you would be wrong. It seems that clean energy from the wind
is not a priority with some of the people who live there. They have houses
with a view, and clean energy be darned, they want to keep those views.
Walter Cronkite and Robert Kennedy, Jr., are leading the charge against this
“unsightly” intrusion. It’s not that they are opposed to the concept of wind
power. Not at all. They are just opposed to having it where they have to see
the windmills.
This way of thinking is not limited to the wealthy of Massachusetts. In
Maine, the Maine Appalachian Trail Club opposes plans to build twenty-nine
turbines on top of Redington Range. Again, the story is the same as with
Cape Cod. It’s not that the MATC opposes the concept of wind power; they just
don’t want the windmills to spoil the view from the trail. They don’t want
the windmills in their backyard.
An ocean view. A wilderness view. Who can blame people for not wanting these
vistas to be spoiled by a grouping of long, slender poles with trim spinning
blades? Yes, the feeling goes, there are tremendous benefits to wind power,
but just don’t make us have to look at the windmills.
The logical conclusion, of course, is that it is better to have other people
look at them. And who might these other people be? People without power, voice,
and clout. In other words, poor people. Haven’t we always put such things in
their neighborhoods? That way, affluent people don’t have to look at the
“unsightly” intrusion. The problem is that the wind seems to like open
vistas, places with a view. Somehow, it’s not drawn to tight, cramped
neighborhoods where children play in the streets and laundry is hung from
lines on the porch.
And, it’s odd to reflect on how lightning rods in a desert attract, over
the years, a “blockbuster crowd” and how windmills on a hill or in the ocean
attract fierce opposition.
3.
THE WINTHROP, MAINE, CONNECTION
They started coming last year, huge noisy machines that ran from dawn to
dusk. Fortunately, it was winter, when dawn comes late and dusk comes early.
I won’t say we were unprepared. We had gone to town meetings where we had
the surreal experience of hearing a representative from the water district
plead the case for clear-cutting because leaves cause pollution. As far as I
know, this representative is not suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.
The town did not give the water district permission to clear-cut the woods
that abuts the Upper Narrows Pond. They did, however, give them permission
to harvest some of the trees.
Our house lot sits at the edge of the town’s watershed, which covers many,
many acres of woods and streams. Because of this, even though we only own
one acre of land, we feel as though we own a grand forest.
As it turns out, this feeling is wrong—the water district owns it. However,
when they get permission to harvest lumber from this land, we are the ones
who have to listen to the roar of the diesel engines, the high-pitched
scream of the chainsaws, and the sickening crack of healthy trees being
felled. It just so happens that the land right by our house is the most
convenient place for the loggers to set up their logging yard and base their
operations. From our dining room, we can see the huge trucks and the
machinery they use for taking down trees. It might not technically be in our
backyard, but as we watch them take down tree after tree, it sure feels that
way.
In the winter, it was tolerable. All the windows were closed, and the
loggers started relatively late and left relatively early. In the summer,
it is quite another matter. The machines begin at about five in the morning,
and they don’t stop until about six in the evening. All our windows are
open—it is, after all, summer—and the noise from the engines is nearly
unbearable. Having lunch on the patio is out of the question. For added fun,
there’s the clanking of the chains on the tires, which sounds like a
visitation from the ghost of Jacob Marley.
However, we have had a lucky break. The logging yard and the area around it
seem to be naturally wet. When it was just ferns and trees, nobody noticed.
Now that the yard is cleared of all plant life, the whole place becomes a
muddy, mucky mess whenever it rains, complete with huge mud puddles of brown
water. The first time this happened, after the snows melted in the spring,
the great machines got stuck, and the loggers frantically hauled in bales
of hay to make the ground solid enough for these behemoths. They
managed to free their machines, but as the spring rains continued to fall,
they quite sensibly decided to go elsewhere.
So we had a reprieve that, alas, ended when the spring rains stopped. The
loggers are back, and our peace and quiet are gone. Rain still drives the
loggers
away, but usually the yard dries out in a few days and they return.
At times I am tempted to complain to the town, to the water district, to the
loggers, but something always stops me. First of all, I know it will do no
good. We don’t own the land, and the loggers have the right to be there.
They are not clear-cutting, and I must admit that the woods look pretty good
despite all that has been cut down. As long as we don’t look at the logging
yard, we can almost pretend they haven’t been there.
Yet there is a more important reason I don’t complain. There isn’t a day
that goes by that I don’t use wood products of some kind. From books to
paper towels to hardwood floors, my house is full of dead trees. In the
winter, we even heat with wood. How can I use all these things, yet whine
because the logging yard is unsightly and the machinery makes too much
noise? All the wood we use has to come from somewhere, and right now some of
it is coming from my backyard.
Windmills. Lightning rods. Lumber trucks. At first glance, there doesn’t
seem to be any connection. Yet one does exist, and it’s mostly a matter of
perspective. At times, slender rods can arouse fierce opposition. At other
times, they are art. We all use wood and power. We just don’t want to be
confronted with the gritty reality.
My backyard. Your backyard. Our backyard. In the end, it’s all one place.
