This New England

This sets a fine example: Behind the the Mountain View Grand Resort, in Whitefield, N.H., is now a 121-foot-high wind turbine tower, which will generate up to half of the White Mountain establishment's electricity.

Rather than worrying that the turbine willl scare people away (the argument of some of the resort-business crowd on the Cape and Islands), the hotel sees the turbine as a point of graceful interest that will also attract guests by appealing to their desire to be considered "green.''

There are innumerable "hospitality-industry'' facilities in New England's mountains and on its coasts that should look into putting up these winmills, which are considerably lower than those in big offshore wind farms. And, of course, the windiest places in New England are the mountains and the coast.

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Red tide is one of those creepy pathologies that make living on the New England coast a more ambiguous experience than it should be, closing down clam flats and sometimes slamming waterfront restaurants at the height of the summer season. So it was good to hear about $457,000 in new federal grants to research and manage outbreaks of the toxic algae, whose comings and goings remain rather mysterious, and disastrous to the shellfish industry.

You can die from eating shellfish infected with red-tide algae.

This is far from just an aesthetic issue. And I'd like to know more about what role man-made pollution plays in red tide's comings and goings.

 Tags  Mountain View Grand Resort N.H. red tide Whitefield

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