Cape Vincent Citizens Against Turbines

In Consideration of the 1000 Islands and

Cape Vincent Region as “Sacred”

This is lengthy, but I hope will be fully considered by readers

It is an absolutely critical conversation.

    Recently Rick Wiley owner of the JLL blog posted an article about the Massachusetts  town of Lennox prohibiting industrial wind turbines on a mountain ridge, and one of their councilmen suggesting that the mountain ridge was “sacred”.  Mr. Wiley then posed this critical question and I give him high credits for raising this fundamental discussion. His quote below.

  “When I read the article, I thought to myself, isn't the entrance to the mighty St. Lawrence River from Lake Ontario sacred, as well”

 My simple response is “BINGO!!!!  Now we are asking the REAL questions.  So let’s explore this little deeper here.

    

    In Arizona I live surrounded by public land under various levels of protection.  Over 10 million acres of National Forest alone, with other lands, and of course Grand Canyon.  This includes numerous wilderness areas.   Living here for 42 years among these lands and the philosophies that created them it gives one a different perspective in the Cape Vincent wind battle.  It becomes a deep rooted part of your life experience. The closest thing we have to this in the immediate CV area is the large public open River and Lake and public access to them. It is no coincidence that the public which comes to the 1000 Islands does not miss this point of open access to large public space.

   

My NO wind development philosophy is not rooted in hysterical NIMBYISM or blind anti wind mantra. It is rooted in well considered experiences with relatively open access to lands under some type of protection, and access to it is essential as a means of human balance and perspective.  These protections and values are no different for the St. Lawrence River, Lake Ontario or the interior of the Golden Crescent , than it is for Grand Canyon. As a result I come to the regional wind battle promoting a prohibition of wind development not as an unusual or radical solution from marginal voices. In my area these voices are heard frequently and sometimes dominate the argument. It is a natural conclusion from my land experiences from the West and its land management practices, even though they are not perfect.

    

 The 1000 Islands area has always been special to me, I did not understand the importance of the 1000 Islands region until I lived in the West, particularly near wilderness lands, where I could experience first hand the human experience related to these publicly protected lands.  The human value of standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon, is precisely the same as standing on the Cape Vincent shore or experiencing the beautiful

Golden Crescent  interior. These things are not separated by a “there or here” and transcend specific place.  It is an experience that deserves long term protection here as well.

     In Cape Vincent we essentially live among many of qualities that define a national park. This is verified by the Canadian’s preserving parts of the 1000 Islands through national park status.  Being surrounded most of my early life with private lands; I had nothing to measure against. Like some of us, I had to go away to truly understand this, but in my case I was plopped down in the middle of vast public lands on my adult ventures, along with the numerous environmental battles that surrounded them. It had a tremendous impact on my thinking as to the value of Cape Vincent and our region and its preservation. In my twenties I even attempted a letter campaign to various officials and the Nature Conservancy to save most of Carleton Is, before it went up for sale, to keep as a preserve similar to the Canadian Park Islands for protection and an economic draw to Cape Vincent.    My Western experience has framed my thinking on the wind issue in our communities and what the resolution should be. Denial of invasive development as an ends is neither radical nor hopeless. It is well established.  It appears many communities facing the industrial wind issue are beginning to agree, such as Lennox, and in addition even broaching that really big question.  Are some lands sacred to us !!!???

John Muir said this about the natural environment and wilderness:

“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is necessity; that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life."

     In regard to Muir’s quote, and Wiley’s question, what would we be preserving by recognition of the sacredness of the Cape Vincent region?   Since the recognition of the land and water as sacred is a construct in man’s mind ( it’s not given this value until we recognize it and create it)…then essentially we are preserving or reflecting on ourselves, and each regard for protection of special places like Cape Vincent is a direct reflection of our humanity, and recognition of how these places sustain our humanity.   If these lands disappear we have nothing to measure against, we lose essential balance and perspective. It is why so many people flock to these special places in significant numbers.  They are voting the recognition of these deep fundamental values.  Cape Vincent IS one of these places despite not being complete wilderness as Muir might define. These are the same fundamental human conditions that prompt people to seek spiritual experiences, be it a church, or religion or some other spiritual connection, to find balance and depth deeper than the everyday experience. So  YES Mr. Wiley these places have a sacred quality.

    Being in a cold business like BP and its wind project managers, they can repeatedly and efficiently reduce places like Cape Vincent to profit calculations. It is essential they negate the human spiritual connection to the land they will dominate. It is exactly why they can do what they do.  It is essential they do not let the public they target explore those essential human values too long or in too much depth. It is exactly why there is so much marginalization of the idea to prohibit wind development. It is exactly why they focus on zoning because wind zoning is the compromise that keeps the door open for them.  Keep people fighting over distances in dirt rather than explore the  big questions as to what they are doing to us as humanly and spiritually.  It’s bad for business.   Thus what is left in this human vacuum are feelings that they have complete entitlement to come to places like Cape Vincent, and simply take them, right along with the human needs so tightly connected them. So Wiley asks THE essential question that BP (and politicians) fear the most, and fear the conclusion it will lead to because it is so complete and unforgiving of it’s business bottom line.  It is one thing to take the land and pay for it, it is quite another to take something of spiritual necessity from deep within all of us on such a personal level, which you can’t pay for. So the only choice left is to essentially just take it, and hope it’s ignored, at least until it’s too late.  If we ever finally understand the gravity of that, then the reaction will be a disaster for BP. It is exactly why we need to have the discussion NOW, not when the zoning laws are nearly complete. There is no other time and the clock is ticking down on decision.   This is why there should be no compromise or accommodation with BP or any similar corporate scheme because of the essence of what we give away on the deep human level in doing so.

     Not many people will ever see or seek true wilderness.  So what is left as an example? Here in CV  the area is accessed by many more people, and  the point or preservation can vividly be made by observing the contrasts and to measure what it means to save what remains.  When you save Cape Vincent you essentially foster the ability to save other sacred and pristine places, another thing not good for BP’s bottom line. The environmental precedent we set here is critical in a far larger context. It has an important global context that all our local and regional leaders should clearly understand before making land use decisions, especially on the wind issue. They need to clearly understand the human spiritual magnitude attached to whatever environmental decisions are made here in Cape Vincent.

    

 Cape Vincent has valuable and essential, examples which are becoming increasingly scarce, of what we were, and what we are, and how we relate to the natural environment, and the importance of those things on the human scale. The issue far too often is incorrectly framed as an issue of property values.  Industrial wind energy is simply too extreme It‘s neither a subtle or respectful development consideration, particularly of the human condition sustained by natural connections. It is an unacceptable reckless, wholesale environmental transformation.    This is why the philosophy of zoning setbacks and traditional zoning paradigms completely misses the point. They are mechanical and do very little to answer the larger human question about the land and our sacred and essential connection to it.  On things of this magnitude, especially if you broach the argument of whether there is a “sacred” quality here, as Wiley did, you must simply say NO to development that is so far removed from human essentials.   It asks far too much from the human aspect.

      However this is why protective comprehensive land use plans ARE critical in this context. They do address the bigger human question. They are the HUMAN element.  What do we humanly tolerate, against our basic human needs expressed in the land?     They help keep in place the critical precedent needed to protect ALL sacred and unique places. Zoning is only the mechanical sum of those choices, and is why comp planning must take full and careful consideration well before zoning.  It IS the expression of the human, sacred element zoning can’t really define. Comp plans done with careful consideration define us and are the critical human conversation, not the law.

        Therefore we must start with a completely different land use paradigm.  One not of traditional zoning approaches, but one based in that the land, is “sacred” and directly attached to the human soul and condition.. It is an admission that certain things simply are far too invasive and destructive to those basic human conditions to be allowed or tolerated.  It is absolutely appropriate to say NO without apology.

    As a young adult my parents gave me a book by John Keats about his experiences living on an island in the 1000 Islands.  “Of Time and an Island.”  On the inside cover was a poem hand written by my mother. It encapsulates well what I have tried to express above, the  sacred value of place.  This place!

“We could not buy you an island. Yet we tried to give you all of them with a place to watch white clouds draw pictures on a north breeze sky. Where the storms brought clouds and wind.  Winds to snatch at your clothes and throw daggers of light above the water, circling the water into waves and dashing them at your feet.  A place for you to see and learn strong things…a place encircled by our love.”

Love,

Mom and Dad

   I read this occasionally to keep vividly clear what I am fighting for and why, and how to frame the resolution.  But far more importantly, it is what will be taken from all of us who truly understand what Cape Vincent and the River and other “sacred places” are about.  It is a reminder for me why humans go to such great lengths and personal sacrifices to preserve them and why we should here as well. No corporation should claim rights to put its hands on these remaining sacred grounds in this manner, and essentially on us and our soul.  There is no separation of what BP  will do to the land, and to us as a result, and what will result is humanly outright obscene. And even if you move away it will haunt you.  It can not be erased with property value guarantees from the wind company.  That is an absurd diversion to the bigger consideration of our area’s true value and what it means on a human scale.     Thought of in this manner and considering the human and spiritual consequences, invasive industrial wind development is beyond unacceptable…it is unimaginable on the human scale in a place like Cape Vincent and the 1000 Islands.

Art Pundt