Wow, this article coulda/shoulda been written about Melancthon.
Here are some selected excerpts:
"First a few large landowners, usually farmers who have been in the area forever, are approached about signing up. At the same time, town supervisors and members of the town planning board, who are often landowners themselves, are targeted. Those who are approached are asked to sign a confidentiality agreement that prevents them from telling their neighbors what is going on. The result is that when the news does get out, an aura of inevitability has already been established; the feeling is “this is so big and so far advanced that there’s nothing we can do.”
That’s just what the wind-energy forces planned. They look for relatively poor areas that display the desired population demographic — farmers with large landholdings and newcomers with large incomes — and then they pit the two constituencies against each other.
There is a David and Goliath aspect to these battles between heavily funded corporate interests and citizen activists who come out and stand in the rain with home-made signs."
You can substitute the word quarry/DEEP/ rail bed for turbines throughout.
Click here for a link to the entire article:
A friend of mine (and yes, I DO have friends) keeps reminding me: Keep your eye on the prize.
The Prize?
That would be the land which has sustained itself with agriculture for generations and the way of life that comes with it-close knit community which, believe it or not are accepting of all newcomers.
Actually, you don't have to "substitute" anything for "turbines" in Melancthon. That story is the same here too.
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