Lowell

Chartered in 1791, Lowell is a small town in Orleans County that sits in the shadow of the Lowell Mountains, a range that has become the subject of significant debate over renewable energy development. The proposed and partially constructed Kingdom Community Wind project brought national attention to Lowell in the 2010s, sparking fierce discussions about the tradeoffs between clean energy and landscape preservation.

Lowell has about 875 residents and is primarily a farming and forestry community. The Missisquoi River flows through the town, and the terrain is a mix of agricultural land in the valleys and forested hills rising to the ridgelines. The town's location in the Northeast Kingdom gives it the rural, self-reliant character that defines this part of Vermont.

Local governance operates through a selectboard and annual town meeting. The wind energy debate gave Lowell a taste of the kind of high-stakes decision-making that usually happens in larger communities, and the experience reinforced the importance of the town meeting process as the place where these difficult choices are made.