Better Plan, Wisconsin

WIND POWER VS WHOOPING CRANE ON THE PRAIRIE

SOURCE Earth Techling, www.earthtechling.com

June 20 2011

by Pete Danko,

The term of art is incidental take. It refers to the “harassment, harm, pursuit, hunting, shooting, wounding, killing, trapping, capture, or collection of any threatened or endangered species.” Incidental take is in the news now because the Obama administration has given notice that it is evaluating issuing an incidental take permit (ITP) – a free pass of sorts – in a 200-mile-wide corridor from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico where whooping cranes migrate.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said it was acting at the urging of a collection of wind-power developers – including familiar names like Duke, Acciona, Iberdrola and NextEra – under the banner of the “Wind Energy Whooping Crane Action Group.” The service said an ITP, if issued, would “cover regional-level construction, operation, and maintenance associated with multiple commercial wind energy facilities” in portions of nine states, including Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Texas.

To obtain an ITP, the government said, an applicant must submit “a Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) containing measures which would minimize incidental take to any species protected by the ESA, including avoidance of incidental take, and mitigate the effects of any incidental take to the maximum extent practicable; and ensure that the taking is incidental to, and not the purpose of, an otherwise lawful activity. If the Service determines that an applicant has satisfied all permitting criteria and other statutory requirements, the ITP is issued.”

The government said the species affected could include the endangered interior least tern and endangered piping plover, as well as the lesser prairie-chicken, a candidate for listing under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). But it’s a population of whooping cranes that would also be covered by the ITP – Grus Americana, the tallest North American bird – that is drawing the most attention.

According to a 2009 government report, the Aransas-Wood Buffalo Population (AWBP) of cranes, the species’ only self-sustaining flock left on Earth, has been making a slow comeback, but still numbers just 247 individuals. So precarious is the AWBP population, the report said, that a rise in mortality rate of a mere three percent annually – as few as eight additional bird deaths each year – would reverse its comeback and spell doom for the species. For its part, the wind industry said it neither wants to nor expects to diminish the whooping crane’s long-term prospects, but rather it seeks to “streamline the ESA permitting process, allowing for the compatible goals of effective wildlife conservation and robust wind energy development.”

The public has until October 12 to comment on the proposed action (see http://www.fws.gov/southwest/ to download a copy of the notice).

WIND DEVELOPERS VS BIRDS

American Bird Conservancy, www.abcbirds.org 20 July 2011

(Washington, D.C., July 20, 2011) American Bird Conservancy (ABC)—the nation’s leading bird conservation organization—today raised concerns about new draft Department of the Interior (DOI) guidelines for wind development that appear to have been overly influenced by energy industry lawyers and lobbyists. The new draft reverses agency protection recommendations for many bird species and adds unrealistic deadlines that would lead to “rubber-stamping” of wind projects. ABC expects millions of migratory birds to be harmed by poorly-planned wind energy.

The draft guidelines were released ahead of a Wind Federal Advisory Committee meeting scheduled for today and tomorrow in Arlington, Virginia, where Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar is expected to speak.

“What is particularly surprising is that even the original guidelines proposed by Interior weren’t mandatory. Here, industry is asking for voluntary guidelines to be weakened. What they might succeed in getting, though, is a set of guidelines that lack clarity, plus greater likelihood of legal problems,” said Mike Parr, Vice President of ABC.

“What we are talking about is thousands of unpermitted wind farms that break bird protection laws and open up legal liability for wind developers and risk for investors. Mandatory guidelines would give developers certainty that they would not face prosecution, and would generate a dialog between wind developers and the Fish and Wildlife Service to help minimize and mitigate bird impacts,” he added.

“Given the Administration’s commitment to scientific integrity, it’s hard to understand why the peer-reviewed work of agency scientists was dismissed in favor of text written by an industry-dominated Federal Advisory Committee,” said Kelly Fuller, Wind Campaign Coordinator at ABC. “ABC would like to see the next draft include more of what the agency scientists wrote.”

Recommendations on wind energy were developed over a two-year period by an industry-dominated, 22-member Federal Advisory Committee and forwarded to the Secretary of the Interior in March 2010. Over the next year, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists made a series of changes to those recommendations to improve protection for birds. Those revised guidelines were then published for public comment in February 2011 (an overwhelming number of the comments called for the guidelines to be strengthened, not weakened). They also underwent scientific peer review. Last week, FWS re-issued a new draft of those guidelines, available at http://www.fws.gov/windenergy/docs/WEG_July_12_%202011.pdf that removed many of the key bird protection elements following pressure from industry.

“ABC supports bird-smart wind energy development in which birds can co-exist with wind energy. America must avoid repeating the mistakes we made with hydropower half a century ago, when we built dams without careful environmental review or consideration, necessitating spending millions of dollars today to remove them. We must likewise steer clear of the mistakes we are making today with coal, which result in costly impacts to public health and wildlife. These new guidelines are not bird-smart,” she added.

Parr said “The new guidelines would harm birds by only giving U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) biologists responsibility to review wind projects within new, truncated deadlines, and without the funding to hire the requisite additional staff. The new draft guidelines would also protect fewer migratory birds than the earlier version and move away from DOI’s legal responsibility to protect all migratory bird species, not just ‘species of concern’.”

In addition, the new guidelines remove protections for both birds and people that FWS biologists had recommended in their peer-reviewed guidelines, including:

Allowing greater latitude in installing overhead power lines between wind turbines, which increases the risk to larger birds such as eagles, hawks, and cranes, instead of burying the lines.

Removing a recommendation that wind developers address wildfire risk and response planning, something that could be potentially very important, especially in Western communities or areas experiencing drought.

Removing a recommendation that wind developers avoid discharging sediment from roads into streams and waters, a standard recommendation at construction sites that protects water quality.

Removing a recommendation to avoid active wind turbine construction during key periods in the life histories of fish and wildlife, such as the nesting season for migratory birds.

The publication date for the final version of the guidelines has not yet been announced.
Concerned citizens have until August 4 to comment on the current guidelines. Comments can be sent to windenergy@fws.gov.

#

American Bird Conservancy (ABC) is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit membership organization which conserves native birds and their habitats throughout the Americas by safeguarding the rarest species, conserving and restoring habitats, and reducing threats while building capacity in the bird conservation movement.

From Australia

HEALTH REVIEW PROMISED INTO WIND FARMS

READ ENTIRE STORY AT THE SOURCE www.abc.net.au

June 9 2011

By Sarina Locker

“I’m standing here because there is a problem,” Ms Bernie Janssen told the seminar. Ms Janssen says she didn’t object to the wind farm at Waubra, in Victoria in 2009, until she began feeling unwell.

“In May-June 2009 I woke in the night with rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath. I didn’t associate it then with wind turbines. In July, my GP noticed that my blood pressure was elevated.” She says she’s also felt body vibration, hypertension, tinitus, cognitive depression, sleep disruption, ear and head pressure.

She found out 37 people living up to 4km away from turbines began experiencing symptoms at about the same time.

The NHMRC’s hearing comes just one week before the Senate Inquiry in the impacts of windfarms is tabled in Parliament.

Many studies on so called wind turbine syndrome have been based on interviewing sufferers.But a Portugese environmental scientist is studying the physical effects of low frequency noise on the body. Dr Mariana Alves-Pereira of Lusofona University in Portugal has been studying vibroacoustics.

“We assess the effects of noise based on medical tests, so they’re objective medical tests. If we go in what we’ll do is get echo-cardiograms, we’ll do brain studies.”

Dr Alves Pereira has degrees in physics, biomedical engineering and a phD environmental science. She bases her research on her earlier work on aircraft workers, dating back to the 1980s who’ve been exposed to high levels of noise, up to 200Hz. “Noise in the aeronautical industry is very rich in low frequency components,” she says.

She found a specific set of symptoms associated with people exposed to low frequency noise, but says these levels are much lower than the levels of low frequency noise in houses near windfarms. She says they studied one family and their horses near a windfarm, and the biological response of their tissues which she says relates to exposure to low frequency noise.

UK based noise and vibration consultant Dr Geoff Leventhall says the media has been running scare stories about infrasound since the 1970s. He cites NASA’s research with Apollo space program found no impact.“The sort of energy exposure from the NASA work over 24 years would take a few thousand years to get from wind farms at the low levels that they have.”

He rejects the theory of a direct physiological effect of infrasound, he says it’s an assumption. He says what annoys people is the audible swish of the blades not infrasound.

Renowned anti-smoking campaigner, public health Professor Dr Simon Chapman has entered the debate and says it’s a noisy minority who say they suffer from the noise. Dr Chapman argues compensation from wind turbines situated on your farm could be the antitode. “People who move to the country, often will feel don’t want their environment disturbed.. and they’re annoyed to see wind farms unless they’re benefitting economically from them.”

He doesn’t see the need for more research, because it might hold up development of wind power. Despite the scepticism, Australia’s peak body supporting health research the NHMRC will conduct another review of the evidence over the next 12 months.

From Massachusetts

TURBINE TALK: NEW STATE PANEL TO STUDY HEALTH EFFECTS

READ THE ENTIRE STORY AT THE SOURCE: FALMOUTH BULLETIN, www.wickedlocal.com

June 8 2011

By Craig Salters

Terri Drummey told the crowd that her son refuses to sleep in his bed because of the “thumping” and was having problems at school until the turbine was curtailed.

Falmouth selectmen organized a Monday night forum to discuss the issue of wind turbines and received a standing-room-only crowd of state and local officials, expert consultants and mostly angry residents.

Discussions of noise, low frequency noise, shadow flicker, proper setback distances and possible health effects from the turbines dominated during the more than three-hour meeting.

The final portion of the meeting was reserved for the comments of abutters to the town’s Wind 1 turbine at the Falmouth Wastewater Treatment Facility. Those residents shared stories of sleepless nights, headaches and other ill effects they say are brought on by the turbine.

Regardless of this or that study, they told the board, there is a problem with the nearly 400-foot, 1.65-megawatt turbine, which has been operational for more than a year but is now curtailed during strong winds in a nod to residents.

“Clearly there is a problem. We are not complaining just to complain,” Blacksmith Shop Road resident Dick Nugent told selectmen after pointing to the packed auditorium at the Morse Pond School. “We don’t expect you to have all the answers but we do expect you to take it and run with it.”

The entire auditorium received a bit of news early in the meeting when Steven Clarke, assistant secretary at the state’s Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, announced that a panel will be formed this week to specifically study any health effects regarding the sounds from wind turbines. That panel will be comprised of representatives of the state’s Department of Environmental Protection and its Department of Public Health.

“Right now, the focus is on sound,” Clarke told the audience.

Regarding possible health effects, Gail Harkness, chairwoman of the Falmouth Board of Health, said that board has been meeting with concerned residents for the past year and now receives bi-weekly updates at its regular meetings She said reported health effects include sleep disturbances, fatigue, headaches and nausea. The board has created a database of information on the issue and has also developed a wind turbine complaint and/or comment form which will be available online.

Patricia Kerfoot, chairwoman of the planning board, lauded the town for its decision to have a one-year moratorium on new wind turbine projects while more information is collected and regulations are formulated. “First and foremost, the planning board is here to listen,” Kerfoot said.

Kerfoot and others had plenty to listen to. There was Chris Menge of Harris Miller Miller & Hanson, the project manager of a noise study on the Wind 1 turbine. He discussed the results of the analysis including additional clarifications requested by the state. According to Menge, Wind 1 did not exceed noise limits but there would be trouble between midnight and 4 a.m. after Wind 2 goes into service. He recommended shutting down one of those turbines at low wind speeds during those hours.

But there was also Todd Drummey, an abutter, who used data available from the studies to point to different conclusions. Drummey said Menge’s claim that the turbine is less intrusive at high wind speeds is contrary to the experience of residents.

“The wind turbine is annoying at low speeds,” Drummey said. “It’s intolerable at high speeds. It drives people out of their homes.”

Drummey was joined by Mike Bahtiarian of Noise Control Engineering, a consultant hired by the resident group. His major point was that amplitude modulation, or what he called “the swishing” of the turbines, needs to be considered.

Stephen Wiehe, a representative of Weston & Samson, discussed the financial aspects of the municipal turbines while Thomas Mills and Susan Innis, both of Vestas, discussed the mechanical details of the turbine itself.

Malcolm Donald, an abutter from Ambleside Drive, discussed the concerns of turbine malfunction and the potential of ice being thrown from the blades. However, probably his most compelling testimony concerned “shadow flicker,” which is the rhythmic flashing of sunlight and shadow caused by the spinning blades. He showed the audience a video shot from inside his house where, looking through the window, the shadow of the blades can be seen moving repeatedly across his lawn.

“The inside of the house looks like a disco in the morning,” he said.

Terri Drummey told the crowd that her son refuses to sleep in his bed because of the “thumping” and was having problems at school until the turbine was curtailed.

“He’s happily brought his C’s and D’s up to A’s and B’s within days,” said Drummey. “Let me repeat that: within days.”

Falmouth selectmen have scheduled a July 11 meeting to follow up on further discussion of the turbines.

Selectmen Chairwoman Mary Pat Flynn thanked everyone for attending the forum but singled out residents for sharing their experiences.

“Certainly they were very personal and right to the point,” she said.

READ MORE ON FALMOUTH TURBINES BY CLICKING HERE: falmouth.patch.com

"Terri Drummey referred to the turbine issues as “the so-called Falmouth Effect,” and described the difficulty sleeping and concentrating which she said had led to her 10-year-old son’s declining grades, as well as her daughter’s headaches, and the ringing in her husband’s ears.

“We are the unwilling guinea pigs in your experiment with wind energy,” she said.

WIND GROUPS SPEND BIG ON LOBBYING

 READ ENTIRE STORY AT THE SOURCE: The Post-Bulletin, www.postbulletin.com

June 8, 2011

By Heather J. Carlson,

ST. PAUL — Two wind companies with plans to build wind farm projects in Goodhue County shelled out $480,000 in lobbying expenditures in 2010, according to a new report.

AWA Goodhue, which has proposed a 78-megawatt project, spent $380,000 on lobbying. That company ranked 17th highest when it came to lobbying expenditures in 2010, according to the report released by the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board. Geronimo Wind, which is also looking at installing turbines in Goodhue County, spent $100,000.

Zumbrota Township resident Kristi Rosenquist, who opposes the wind project, said she was “shocked” when she saw how much AWA Goodhue spent on lobbying.

Who spent what

AWA Goodhue, $380,000

Geronimo Wind, $100,000

EnXco, $40,000

Juhl Wind, $40,000

Minnesota Wind Coalition, $40,000

Lake Country Wind, $20,000

Renewable Energy Group, $20,000

Windustry, $8,500

Total: $648,500

Source: 2010 Lobbying Disbursement Summary, Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board

Note from the BPWI Research Nerd: This map shows the Golden Eagle range map, including a section in our state of Wisconsin where wind development is planned.

WIND POWER TURBINES AT ALTAMONT PASS THREATEN PROTECTED BIRDS

Read entire story at the source: Los Angeles Times, www.latimes.com

June 6, 2011

By Louis Sahagun

“It would take 167 pairs of local nesting golden eagles to produce enough young to compensate for their mortality rate related to wind energy production,” said field biologist Doug Bell, manager of East Bay Regional Park District’s wildlife program. “We only have 60 pairs.”

Scores of protected golden eagles have been dying each year after colliding with the blades of about 5,000 wind turbines along the ridgelines of the Bay Area’s Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area, raising troubling questions about the state’s push for alternative power sources.

The death count, averaging 67 a year for three decades, worries field biologists because the turbines, which have been providing thousands of homes with emissions-free electricity since the 1980s, lie within a region of rolling grasslands and riparian canyons containing one of the highest densities of nesting golden eagles in the United States.

“It would take 167 pairs of local nesting golden eagles to produce enough young to compensate for their mortality rate related to wind energy production,” said field biologist Doug Bell, manager of East Bay Regional Park District’s wildlife program. “We only have 60 pairs.”

The fate of the Bay Area’s golden eagles highlights the complex issues facing wildlife authorities, wind turbine companies and regulatory agencies as they promote renewable energy development in the Altamont Pass and across the nation and adds urgency to efforts to make the technology safer for wildlife, including bats, thousands of which are killed each year by wind turbines.

Gov. Jerry Brown in April signed into law a mandate that a third of the electricity used in California come from renewable sources, including wind and solar, by 2020. The new law is the most aggressive of any state.

The development and delivery of renewable energy is also one of the highest priorities of the Interior Department, which recently proposed voluntary guidelines for the sighting and operation of wind farms. Environmental organizations led by the American Bird Conservancy had called for mandatory standards.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service authorizes limited incidental mortality and disturbance of eagles at wind facilities, provided the operators take measures to mitigate the losses by replacing older turbines with newer models that are meant to be less hazardous to birds, removing turbines located in the paths of hunting raptors and turning off certain turbines during periods of heavy bird migration. So far, no wind energy company has been prosecuted by federal wildlife authorities in connection with the death of birds protected by the Migratory Bird Act, the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act or the federal Endangered Species Act.

The survival of the Bay Area’s golden eagles may depend on data gathered by trapping and banding and then monitoring their behavior in the wilds and in wind farms.

On a recent weekday, Bell shinnied up the gnarled branches of an old oak to a bathtub-sized golden eagle nest overlooking a canyon about 25 miles south of Altamont Pass.

Two fluffy white and black chicks, blinked and hissed nervously as he scooped them up and placed them into cloth sacks. He attached the sacks to a rope and delicately lowered them 45 feet to the ground.

“As adults, these birds could eventually wind up anywhere in the Western United States or Mexico — that is, if they live that long,” Bell said.

With field biologist Joe DiDonato, he banded the birds’ legs and recorded their vital statistics in a journal that chronicles more than a decade of raptor research in the region. The message is a grim one.

Each year, about 2,000 raptors are killed in the Altamont Pass by wind turbines, according to on-site surveys conducted by field biologists. The toll, however, could be higher because bird carcasses are quickly removed by scavengers.

Environmentalists have persuaded the energy industry and federal authorities — often through litigation — to modify the size, shape and placement of wind turbines. Last year, five local Audubon chapters, the California attorney general’s office and Californians for Renewable Energy reached an agreement with NextEra Energy Resources to expedite the replacement of its old wind turbines in the Altamont Pass with new, taller models less likely to harm birds such as golden eagles and burrowing owls that tend to fly low.

The neighboring Buena Vista Wind Energy Project recently replaced 179 aging wind turbines with 38 newer and more powerful 1-megawatt turbines. That repowering effort has reduced fatality rates by 79% for all raptor species and 50% for golden eagles, according to a study by Shawn Smallwood, an expert on raptor ecology in wind farms.

It remains unclear, however, whether such mega-turbines would produce similar results elsewhere, or reduce fatalities among bats.

Nationwide, about 440,000 birds are killed at wind farms each year, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service. The American Wind Energy Assn., an industry lobbying group, points out that far more birds are killed each year by collisions with radio towers, tall buildings, airplanes, vehicles and in encounters with hungry household cats.

And while “there’s quite a bit of growth to come in wind energy development, it won’t be popping up everywhere,” said attorney Allan Marks, who specializes in the development of renewable energy projects. “That is because you can only build these machines where the wind is blowing. So a lot of the new development will be replacing old facilities in areas such as Cabazon, the Tehachapi Mountains and Altamont Pass.”

Nonetheless, the generating facilities will continue to threaten federally protected species such as eagles and California condors, a successfully recovered species that is expanding its range into existing and proposed wind farms in Kern and Fresno counties.

NextEra Energy’s proposed North Sky River Project calls for 102 wind turbines across 12,582 acres on the east flank of the Piute Mountains, about 17 miles northeast of the Tehachapis. A risk assessment of that project warned that condors spend considerable time soaring within the potential rotor-swept heights of modern wind turbines, which are more than 200 feet tall. It also pointed out that condor roosts are as close as 25 miles away.

“We taxpayers have spent millions of dollars saving the California condor from extinction,” said Gary George, spokesman for Audubon California. “How’s the public going to feel about wind energy if a condor hits the turbines?”

In the meantime, raptors such as golden eagles, American kestrels, red-tail hawks and prairie falcons continue to compete with wind turbines for their share of the winds blowing from the southwest through the Altamont Pass.

Golden eagles weigh about 14 pounds, stand up to 40 inches tall and are equipped with large hooked bills and ice-pick talons. Their flight behavior and size make it difficult for them to maneuver through forests of wind turbine towers, especially when distracted by the sight of prey animals such as ground squirrels and rabbits.

“The eagles usually die of blunt-force trauma injuries,” Bell said. “Once, I discovered a wounded golden eagle hobbling through tall grass, about a quarter mile from the turbine blades that had clipped its flight feathers.”

As he spoke, an adult male golden eagle glided a few yards above the contours of Buena Vista’s sloped grasslands, prowling for prey. It floated up and over a rise, narrowly evading turbine blades as it followed the tantalizing sight of a ground squirrel scurrying through the brush.

Bell sighed with relief. “A wind farm owner once told me that if there were no witnesses, it would be impossible to prove a bird had been killed by a wind turbine blade,” he said. “My response was this: If you see a golden eagle sliced in half in a wind farm, what other explanation is there?”

HEALTH REVIEW BLASTED FOR ITS BIAS

READ ENTIRE STORY AT THE SOURCE www.goderichsignalstar.com

June 1, 2011

"Dr. Colby was issued a warning by the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons not to make public statements or allow anyone to believe that he had expertise on the subject of wind turbine related health problems, since his expertise lies not in this area but in the field of microbiology and infectious diseases."

The letter extolling Dr. Colby’s virtues was written by several who stand to greatly benefit financially from the installation of industrial wind turbines.

They infer Dr. Colby is a credible expert on the subject. The College of Physicians and Surgeons disagree.

Dr. Colby was issued a warning by the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons not to make public statements or allow anyone to believe that he had expertise on the subject of wind turbine related health problems, since his expertise lies not in this area but in the field of microbiology and infectious diseases.

The writers also state he was Chair of an international committee reviewing the health effects of wind turbines. They neglected to mention that this so-called “committee” was assembled, bought and paid for by the wind industry lobbyists including CanWEA and AWEA.

This “review” was designed to promote the wind industry and has been blasted for its bias and lack of scientific method by UK’s National Health Service, the Acoustic Ecology Institute, the Society for Wind Vigilance, among others.

Dr. Colby, with his evangelical zeal with wind power, refuses to even meet or speak to the people who are actually having problems in Ontario, including those in Chatham Kent.

In my opinion, Dr. Colby is abusing his interim position as CMO by using it to further his ideological agenda at the expense of those being forced to live (or forced to leave) in industrial wind complexes.

Sincerely,

Maureen Anderson

From Australia

UNIVERSITY TO INVESTIGATE REDUCING TURBINE NOISE

READ ENTIRE STORY AT THE SOURCE:  AdelaideNow, www.news.com.au

June 1, 2011

By Clare Peddie

“Wind turbine noise is very directional. Someone living at the base might not have a problem but two kilometres away, it might be keeping them awake at night,” Dr Doolan said.

Silencing wind turbines is the aim of a new project at the University of Adelaide.

Engineers are studying the causes of turbine noise to make them quieter and solve the problem of `wind turbine syndrome’.

They want to understand how air turbulence and the blade edge, or boundary layer, interact to make the noise louder than it could be.

A computer model will predict the noise output from wind farms so the team can accurately and quickly assess the effectiveness of noise-reducing designs and control methods.

Research leader Dr Con Doolan, of the University’s School of Mechanical Engineering, said the noise generated from wind turbines was “trailing edge or airfoil noise” – the same sort of noise generated at the edge of aircraft wings.

“If we can understand this fundamental science, we can then look at ways of controlling the noise, through changing the shape of the rotor blades or using active control devices at the blade edges to disrupt the pattern of turbulence,” he said.

Dr Doolan said further complicating factors came from the way the noise increases and decreases as the blades rotate.

The computer model will look at the noise from the whole wind turbine and how multiple numbers of wind turbines together, as in a wind farm, generate noise.

“Wind turbine noise is very directional. Someone living at the base might not have a problem but two kilometres away, it might be keeping them awake at night,” Dr Doolan said.

“Likewise this broadband `hissing’ noise modulates up and down as the blades rotate and we think that’s what makes it so annoying.

“Wind turbine noise is controversial but there’s no doubt that there is noise and that it seems to be more annoying than other types of noise at the same level. Finding ways of controlling and reducing this noise will help us make the most of this very effective means of generating large amounts of electricity with next to zero carbon emissions.”

From Ontario

TURBULENT TIMES AHEAD FOR ONTARIO'S WIND INDUSTRY

 READ ENTIRE STORY AT THE SOURCE: Better Farming, www.betterfarming.com

May 31, 2011

PAT CURRIE

With research into emerging technologies underway, the Ontario Federation of Agriculture joins the call for a moratorium on wind development

A probe into the health effects of new energy technology, sanctioned by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment at the University of Waterloo, has been underway for six months.

The Canadian Wind Energy Association (CWEA), representing 480 companies that are riding on the coat-tails of the boom in Ontario renewable-energy projects, reported this month that with 2,125 megawatts of signed contracts already in place under Ontario’s Feed-in Tariff (FIT) program, applicants have lined up to seek approval from the Ontario Power Authority to add another 6,672 MW of renewable energy projects to the grid.

Scott Smith, vice-president of policy at CWEA, said one recommendation “is for up to 10,700 MW of renewable power in Ontario by 2018.”

In the meantime, at least 76 Ontario municipalities plus other entities such as health boards and conservation authorities continue to demand a moratorium on such projects until an independent and unbiased third party has completed a study on health effects of wind turbines. And, as of last month the Ontario Federation of Agriculture has joined the push.

“I’m 100 per cent for a moratorium,” said Ontario Federation of Agriculture director Wayne Black, a Huron County grain grower, who says aging residents of heritage family homesteads may be especially vulnerable to noise and vibrations of nearby wind turbines. Some turbines set up before the Green Energy Act established minimum setbacks are almost 200 metres within the current 550-metre setback minimum, he said.

“The energy companies’ answer to that has been to resort to buying the homesteads with no value placed on the heritage factor. That could be devastating,” Black said.

Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Arlene King, concluded there is no link between wind turbine noise and health effects.

But in a report last fall, Dr. Hazel Lynn medical officer of health and head of the Grey Bruce Health Unit, stated: “It is clear that many people, in many different parts of Grey Bruce and Southwestern Ontario have been dramatically impacted by the noise and proximity of wind farms.

“We cannot pretend this affected minority doesn’t exist,” Lynn stated.

Lynn welcomes an environment ministry announcement that it was allocating $1.5 million for a study by a task force headed by Dr. Siva Sivoththaman, a University of Waterloo professor of electrical and computer engineering, into health effects of all types of renewable power.

However, Jonathan Rose, press secretary to Environment Minister John Wilkinson, dashed hopes that the five-year study will be accompanied by a moratorium.

“We are not considering a moratorium at this time,” he told Better Farming.

Rose also cited a Superior Court of Ontario ruling that “upheld our requirements as being based on peer-reviewed science. . . . That is exactly why we are funding the independent academic research chair at the University of Waterloo to study emerging energy technologies around renewable energy. We will review his (Sivoththaman’s) research to make sure our requirements continue to be protective,” Rose said.

Drew Ferguson, spokesman for the Grey Bruce Health Unit, said that Dr. Lynn and the Grey Bruce public health board were concerned that the King report sported several omissions.

“They identified eight areas that needed further study, but no action was taken,” Ferguson said.

Lynn’s report recently helped trigger a renewed call by the Ontario Federation of Agriculture for a moratorium on wind-turbine developments. At its meeting in April, the Federation’s board supported motions from the Huron and Haldimand County Federations of Agriculture to lobby the province for the moratorium.

FROM FLORIDA

FLORIDA WIND FARM KICKING UP DUST

READ ENTIRE STORY AT SOURCE  www.politico.com

June 1, 2011

By Bob King

“These are migratory flight paths — not just [for] our birds,” said Rosa Durando, a longtime activist with the local Audubon chapter in Palm Beach County. “Birds from the Northern Hemisphere, they go to Mexico, they fly through Florida. The whole thing is sickening to me.”

Florida is the latest battleground for greens anguished about the ecological costs of green power.

This time, a proposal for a sprawling wind farm just north of the Everglades is facing blowback from environmental groups that worry it could become an avian Cuisinart for the wading birds, raptors and waterfowl that teem in the sprawling marshes nearby.

At least one statewide conservation organization has come out against the project by the St. Louis-based Wind Capital Group, which would feature as many as 100 turbines as tall as the Statue of Liberty stretched across a 20,000-acre swath of sugar cane and vegetable farms in western Palm Beach County.

The National Audubon Society’s Florida affiliate is also taking a hard look at the wind proposal, although it has yet to take a position.

“We think alternative energy is absolutely necessary,” said Jane Graham, Audubon’s Everglades policy associate. “You see what’s happening with coal plants and climate change. … But as far as the location of this wind farm, that has raised serious concerns.”

That location would place the turbines near the northernmost remnants of the Everglades, as well as the South’s largest lake and a series of man-made cleanup marshes that have become magnets for egrets, herons and ducks. The region is also the epicenter of a $15 billion Everglades restoration effort that federal agencies hope will revive the throngs of wading birds that once crowded the skies over South Florida.

“There are literally tens if not hundreds of thousands of ducks in a 100-mile radius or less of this location,” said Newton Cook, executive director of United Waterfowlers-Florida, a roughly 1,000-member group whose board voted in April to oppose the project. “These whirling blades could, in our opinion, be devastating.”

The WCG said it is committed to addressing the environmental concerns, and it has drawn praise from activists for reaching out to the green groups well before applying for permits. It has also started a yearlong study of bird and bat populations and behavior on both the project location and in the surrounding area, WCG Senior Vice President Sarah Webster told POLITICO.

“We respect this environmentally unique area,” Webster said, adding that the company expects to have “supportive relationships” with most of the environmental groups.

“When proposing any large-scale project, you’re never going to bring everyone along with you, but we’re working hard to engage with the many environmental groups in the area to understand and address their concerns with strong research and science,” she said.

The WCG has yet to apply for state and federal permits but hopes the roughly $250 million project will be up and running by the end of 2012.

Webster said the initiative has implications for national energy policy: The 150-megawatt project would be perhaps the first commercial-scale wind farm in the Southeast, where a dearth of renewable energy sources has complicated proposals for addressing the region’s climate impacts. It could also provide needed jobs in western Palm Beach County’s impoverished farming region.

In a presentation earlier this year to local planners, the WCG said modern turbine designs will significantly reduce the risk to birds. The rotors spin more slowly than in older windmills, and the turbines’ smooth, monopole bases don’t offer the potential nesting spaces that older lattice designs did.

Worries about bird deaths have plagued a number of wind projects, especially after tens of thousands of golden eagles, red-tailed hawks and other species fell prey to the blades of a sprawling, decades-old wind farm in the mountains near San Francisco.

Last summer, the Bureau of Land Management reacted to those types of concerns by suspending the issuing of wind permits on public lands until companies submit eagle protection plans. More recently, The Denver Post reported that the Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing an eagle conservation plan that has some in the wind industry concerned that the safeguards could add years to the time it takes to carry out a project.

John Anderson, director of siting policy for the American Wind Energy Association, said modern, properly sited projects haven’t posed major threats to birds. He added that wind turbines kill far fewer birds each year than do feral cats, power lines or telecommunications towers.

In particular, he said, post-construction studies of bird mortality show that only a low percentage of wading birds and waterfowl collide with the blades.

“The reality is that everything we do as humans has an impact on the natural environment,” Anderson said. Still, he said the hazards posed by wind energy “are far exceeded by impacts created by other forms of energy generation.”

Indeed, the proposed wind farm may be by far the cleanest energy initiative to have targeted South Florida’s marsh- and farm-laden interior in recent years — especially compared with a coal plant that NextEra Energy’s Florida Power & Light subsidiary tried to build in neighboring Glades County during the past decade. FPL is also putting the finishing touches on a natural gas plant in central Palm Beach County that inspired a 2008 blockade by more than 100 environmental protesters, who objected to emitting greenhouse gases so close to the Everglades.

Besides putting out emissions, traditional power plants also require a lot of water for cooling, an increasing concern for drought-prone Florida. But wind turbines don’t need water.

Still, some conservationists said they don’t think the WCG’s studies go far enough. They fear that the location alone is a recipe for feathery havoc.

“These are migratory flight paths — not just [for] our birds,” said Rosa Durando, a longtime activist with the local Audubon chapter in Palm Beach County. “Birds from the Northern Hemisphere, they go to Mexico, they fly through Florida. The whole thing is sickening to me.”

Others are taking a wait-and-see attitude about the turbines.

“I’m kind of too unknowledgeable yet to say whether I support them or don’t,” said Joanne Davis, a planner for the environmental group 1000 Friends of Florida, who serves with Durando on a local land-development board that is considering rules for the wind project.

Besides awaiting results from the company’s studies, Davis said she’s interested in what conclusions agencies such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will draw when they study the proposal.

“I’m all for renewable energy,” Davis said. “If it’s feasible, if it’s not going to slaughter the wildlife, if it will work — then great.”

Wind isn’t the only form of renewable energy to face environmental challenges. Green groups have joined American Indian tribes in suing over plans to build sprawling solar-thermal power plants in the California desert, charging that they will disrupt habitat for desert wildlife, as well as burial sites.

Nathanael Greene, renewable energy policy director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told The Associated Press earlier this year that resolving these types of eco-disputes poses “a broad challenge to us as a country.”

“How do we rapidly deploy the renewable energy technologies and transmission infrastructures to stave off catastrophic climate change and local and regional air pollution that comes with burning fossil fuels?” Greene asked. “Even the best-sited projects have impacts on the landscape.”

THIS FROM MICHIGAN:

WIND DEVELOPERS BEHAVING BADLY, CHAPTER 723: How to buy a 76 year land lease from a 73 year old man for just $150.00

"Some of the lease agreements Balance 4 Earth has signed with residents allow the company to operate for up to 70 years on a property, with an initial six year period to be followed by a 30 year period and two 20-year extensions, at the company’s discretion[...]

Bernard Keiser, 73, of Bliss Township, said he signed the lease agreement with Balance 4 Earth to help join his 15 acre lot with a 79-acre lot owned by his brother, who is in a nursing home. Bernard signed the lease agreement for $150."

READ THE ENTIRE STORY HERE: WIND ENERGY: STILL STORMY DEBATE IN EMMET COUNTY

FROM ONTARIO:

THE GREAT DIVIDE OVER WIND POWER; WHERE WINDS BLOW, STORMS FOLLOW

READ THE ENTIRE STORY AT THE SOURCE: The Ottawa Citizen, www.ottawacitizen.com

May 21, 2011

By Don Butler

“The noise is, at times, huge.” Sometimes it sounds like a pulsing jet engine. At other times, it’s a constant rumble, like an endless freight train passing. Neighbours tell her it’s like living near an airport.

“The range of noise is unbelievable, and it’s all so completely different from what you’re used to that you just stop whatever you’re doing,” Elmes says. “I used to love my neighbourhood. I don’t anymore.”

When Monica Elmes and her husband Neil bought their 35-hectare farm near Ridgetown in southwestern Ontario 15 years ago, the rural peace and serenity was the main attraction. “It was like heaven,” she says.

They put their hearts and souls into renovating the old farmhouse. “We did that thinking we’d never have to consider leaving.”

But that was before a 100-megawatt wind farm began operating next door in December. Forty-four turbines, each more than 400 feet tall, now surround her paradisical farm on three sides. The nearest is about 1.5 kilometres from her house.

“It sucks,” says Elmes. “The noise is, at times, huge.” Sometimes it sounds like a pulsing jet engine. At other times, it’s a constant rumble, like an endless freight train passing. Neighbours tell her it’s like living near an airport.

“The range of noise is unbelievable, and it’s all so completely different from what you’re used to that you just stop whatever you’re doing,” Elmes says. “I used to love my neighbourhood. I don’t anymore.”

Elmes is not alone. Fertilized by generous subsidies in the Ontario government’s Green Energy Act, industrial wind turbines are sprouting like dandelions across the province’s rural landscape, finding willing hosts in farmers and other property owners eager to earn some money by leasing their land.

There are 914 turbines provincewide, theoretically capable of generating up to 1,636 megawatts of electricity.

The province already has signed contracts with wind companies that will roughly double that number. And it has received applications for a further 3,000 or so turbines, with an installed capacity of 6,672 megawatts, according to the Canadian Wind Energy Association.

Within the foreseeable future, in short, close to 5,000 wind turbines could blanket rural Ontario.

Urban residents, who largely regard wind power as an unbridled virtue, might cheer that news. But in rural areas, the turbine invasion has generated anger, alarm and corrosive social division, pitting those who welcome wind power as an economic boon against those horrified by what they view as a threat to their health, wealth and enjoyment of life.

“There are families in Ontario who no longer speak to each other because of this issue,” says John Laforet, head of Wind Concerns Ontario, a coalition of 57 mostly rural anti-wind groups whose website has attracted nearly 1.5 million views. “It’s perceived that some are prepared to destroy the community in exchange for a few thousand dollars.”

“It’s terrible,” moans Wayne Fitzgerald, mayor of the rural municipality of Grey Highlands, where a wind developer is poised to start construction on an 11-turbine project. “We’re torn on council, we’re torn in the community. The people who are opposed to it are very, very vocal. They feel quite strongly.”

The issue will have a “profound impact” on the outcome of this October’s provincial election, predicts Laforet, whose group is actively preparing to organize against the governing Liberals.

“It’s going to be a real problem for the Liberals because we can mobilize in somewhere between 24 and 26 Liberal ridings in rural areas,” he says. “I’m quite confident that wind-concerns groups can move the bar enough in enough ridings to defeat the government.”

Wind turbines were a lively issue in last fall’s municipal election in pastoral Prince Edward County near Belleville, where a nine-turbine project along a major path for migratory birds is close to proceeding and numerous others are in various stages of development.

Voters responded by electing Peter Mertens, who campaigned against wind development, as mayor. They also transformed what had been a pro-wind council into one that passed a motion in January calling for a moratorium on wind development. About 80 municipalities have passed similar resolutions.

“It became an extremely divisive issue, and it has probably gotten worse, if anything,” Mertens says. Urbanites who fled to the county to enjoy its scenic beauty have found themselves at odds with longtime farm residents who see the turbines as a way to generate needed cash.

Most wind farms are in central or southwestern Ontario. There are 162 turbines in Bruce County alone, with nearly 480 more proposed. Chatham-Kent has 203 turbines, with about 430 more in the works.

Wolfe Island, across the harbour from Kingston, is home to the only wind project in Eastern Ontario. Operating for two years with 86 turbines, it’s the second-largest in Canada. But Kemptville-based Prowind Canada has proposed smaller projects near North Gower, Spencerville, Carleton Place and Winchester.

Opponents have mobilized. The North Gower Wind Action group, formed to fight a proposed eight-to-10-turbine project near the village, has about 300 supporters. “These are industrial structures,” says Jane Wilson, the group’s chair. “They’re not little windmills. These ones are about 190 metres tall. That’s twice the height of the Peace Tower.”

For opponents, the sheer scale of the turbines is only part of it. There are also concerns about their impact on health and property values.

Opponents say studies have found that those living adjacent to turbines have lost between 20 and 40 per cent of their property value. In some cases, properties have become virtually unsellable.

When prospective buyers come to Prince Edward County — a mecca for former urbanites seeking a bucolic alternative —the first thing they ask real-estate agents is whether a property is near an area that may get turbines, says Mertens. If so, they aren’t interested.

Mertens had an e-mail recently from a property owner who’s been trying to sell a lot near one of the proposed projects for two years, without success. “He told me he’s walking away from the lot now. He no longer wants to pay taxes on it.”

Energy consultant Tom Adams, a critic of the Green Energy Act, spoke at a conference last month organized by an anti-wind group in Meaford, near Georgian Bay. Astonishingly, more than 250 people showed up on a sunny spring Saturday to hear Adams and other speakers.

“It was a huge eye-opener for me,” Adams says. “They are so pissed off about this. We’re talking about something really deep here — the protection of people’s land value. People get emotional about that subject.”

A tax assessment hearing now under way could help provide some clarity on the issue. Gail and Edward Kenney are arguing that the 28 turbines they can see from their home on Wolfe Island have devalued their property.

While they can’t always hear the turbines, when the wind is blowing the right way, “it completely fills the atmosphere,” says Gail Kenney. “This is not like the noise of anything I know.” The turbines pollute the night sky, she says, with red lights that flash every three seconds.

The island’s natural heritage has taken a beating as well, Kenney says. The once-abundant deer she used to enjoy seeing have fled. The short-eared owl, a species of special concern in Canada, has all but disappeared from the island’s west end.

Most health concerns are related to the noise the turbines make — particularly “infrasound,” a low-frequency vibration below the normal range of human hearing. Some who live near turbines report disrupted sleep, headaches, nausea, tinnitus and dizziness.

That said, the health impact of turbines has yet to be conclusively demonstrated. In a May 2010 report, Ontario’s chief medical officer of health, Dr. Arlene King, found that scientific evidence to date “does not demonstrate a direct causal link between wind turbine noise and adverse health effects.”

But Dr. Hazel Lynn, medical officer of health for the Grey Bruce Health Unit, reached a different conclusion in a report in January. It’s clear, she found, that many people have been “dramatically impacted by the noise and proximity of wind farms. To dismiss all these people as eccentric, unusual or hyper-sensitive social outliers does a disservice to constructive public discourse.”

Not all people exposed to wind turbines suffer physical symptoms, Lynn said in an interview. But a certain percentage do. “That’s pretty consistent across the world. It’s the same complaints everywhere. And that’s really rare unless there’s some real reason for it.”

More research is required, says Lynn. But that’s hampered by non-disclosure agreements imposed on leaseholders by wind companies, including clauses that forbid them from talking about problems.

“To me, it’s already suspicious before you start,” she says.

Coupled with the Green Energy Act’s removal of local authority over the siting and approval of turbines, this cone of silence has created “a huge sense of social injustice” in rural Ontario, says Laforet. But the Green Energy Act’s cost and ineffectiveness means urbanites are paying a high price, too, he says.

“We see it as a battle all Ontarians are in, because we all lose. We all have to pay more for this power we don’t need. But in rural Ontario, they lose so much more. They lose their way of life, they lose their property values and, in some cases, they lose their health.”

Elmes says she feels “huge despair” at what’s happening. But this month’s announcement that Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives would scrap the lucrative feed-in tariff (FIT) program for wind power projects if elected this fall gives her hope that things could change.

“That’s about the only thing keeping me going. We all just want our healthy, peaceful lives back.”

THE REALITY OF WIND POWER

One of the inherent limitations of wind power is its unreliability. It produces electricity only when the wind blows. And how much it produces depends on how much oomph nature provides at any given time.

Ontario has wind power with an installed capacity of 1,636 megawatts, an amount expected to rise to 2,200 megawatts by early next year.

But in fact, it produces far less than that. Friday morning between 8 and 9 a.m., for example, wind was generating just 31 megawatts of electricity. Between 11 a.m. and noon on Wednesday, when winds were blowing more lustily, it was cranking out 669 megawatts.

In a recent study, Aegent Energy Advisors evaluated wind data for 2009 and 2010 from the Ontario Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO), which measures the output of wind turbines connected to the high voltage distribution grid.

It found that the average “capacity factor” over that time was 27.8 per cent, meaning that for every 1,000 megawatts of installed wind capacity, the average annual output would be 278 megawatts. But that doesn’t account for wind’s variability. That same 1,000 megawatts would produce no electricity at all at if there’s no wind, or as much as 949 megawatts in a stiff gale.

By comparison, nuclear power has an average capacity factor of about 90 per cent. Last year, nuclear reactors produced the equivalent of a continuous, around-the-clock output of 9,452 megawatts.

To replace that nuclear output with wind power, Ontario would require 34,000 megawatts of installed wind capacity, Aegent calculated. The turbines needed for that, it said, would consume 14,200 square kilometres of land -equivalent to a band 14 kilometres wide and 1,000 kilometres long.

Ontario would also need 10,000 megawatts of natural gas generation as a backup for periods when wind power was producing little or nothing, Aegent said.