Renewable Revolution

Annette Smith 

August 4, 2015 at 9:15 am


“An opponent?” Jeez, can people raise legitimate questions about projects without being labelled? We really need to get over this “opponent” and “foe” framing of discussions about development proposals.

By opening the article with “an opponent” it detracts from the substance of issue, which should alarm anyone with an interest in how Gaz-Metro/VGS is doing business in Vermont. The Vermont leadership is all implicated in withholding critical information at times when it should have been disclosed. It is irrelevant to the story whether or not people oppose the project.

What is relevant is a corporation behaving as though it is entitled to take the land of Vermonters and disrupt people’s lives for years without any regard for how and it achieves its goals. This project should be cancelled on ethical issues alone.

The board was looking into whether it should reopen the company’s state-level permit when the price increased the first time — from $86.6 million to $121.6 million — allegedly because of increased construction costs.