Better Plan, Wisconsin

VIDEO: THROWING CAUTION TO THE WIND:

 Wind farms are springing up as easy investments in green energy. Scientific studies have raised serious concerns about the impact they could have on human health. But few are paying much attention.

As Sylvia Squair reports, some doctors and scientists are now joining concerned citizens, urging the government and the industry not to throw caution to the wind.

SECOND FEATURE:

What started out as a welcomed clean energy source has now become a public health issue, Neil Andersen said, and will only get worse when a second identical turbine on the same parcel becomes operational in the next six months.

“We’re seriously thinking about selling our home and getting out of here,” Andersen said. “I have headaches and my head is spinning. My wife wakes up crying her head off. We don’t know what to do.”

Turbine Noise Ruffling Feathers

SOURCE: Cape Cod Times, www.capecodonline.com

August 1, 2010 By Aaron Gouveia,

FALMOUTH — Neil and Elizabeth Andersen prefer open windows to air conditioning, but their home is now hermetically sealed despite the warm and breezy weather.

Although Neil, 57, and Elizabeth, 53, have spent more than 20 years enjoying Falmouth’s fresh air and working in their meticulous gardens on Blacksmith Shop Road, they now remain indoors and devote effort to blocking out the constant noise emanating from Wind I, the 400-foot-tall, 1.65-megawatt wind turbine whirling less than 1,500 feet from their front door.

What started out as a welcomed clean energy source has now become a public health issue, Neil Andersen said, and will only get worse when a second identical turbine on the same parcel becomes operational in the next six months.

“We’re seriously thinking about selling our home and getting out of here,” Andersen said. “I have headaches and my head is spinning. My wife wakes up crying her head off. We don’t know what to do.”

On Friday, Neil Andersen said his wife’s doctor told the couple Elizabeth has already suffered at least some hearing damage. She is scheduled to see a specialist in two weeks and was also given a prescription to combat vertigo.

The couple believes the cause of their medical maladies is the noise from the turbine, which they say has left them with dizziness, headaches and many sleepless nights.

The $4.3 million town-owned turbine began whirling in March. Since then, town officials say they have received “sporadic complaints” about noise from a handful of neighbors, usually when wind speeds increase.

‘I have to move away’

The turning blades are visible through the trees from the Andersens’ house. On Thursday, with westerly winds blowing at approximately 12 mph, the sound of the turbine was audible, but tamer than usual, the Andersens said.

Described as alternating between the “sound of a hovering jet that never lands” and a pronounced “whooshing” noise during periods of higher winds, Neil Andersen said he wears noise-reducing headphones while in his yard and has installed fountains in his garden to drown out the noise from the turbine.

Elizabeth Andersen sleeps with multiple fans going and simultaneously listens to a white noise machine. Neil Andersen said the only way he can sleep is to retreat to the basement.

The Andersens have complained to selectmen, the board of health, zoning officials and, on Thursday, even attempted to file a battery complaint against the turbine at the Falmouth Police Station.

The couple is not alone.

Barry Funfar, a 63-year-old veteran and Ridgeview Drive resident who lives roughly 1,700 feet from the turbine, suffered from post traumatic stress disorder before the turbine’s installations, but he said the noise from the windmill is exacerbating his condition.

What’s worse, it is also driving a wedge between Funfar and his wife because she does not want to move from the home they’ve shared for 30 years.

“My doctor tells me there’s no way I’ll be able to cope living next to that windmill,” Funfar said. “I have to face it. I have to move away.”

But Dr. Robert McCunney, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Biological Engineering and a staff physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, spoke in Bourne last month and said studies have not show a link between low-frequency sound from wind turbines and adverse health effects.

McCunney, who did not return a phone call seeking comment, said last month that the “swish, swish” of the blades rotating through the air causes only annoyance among people who live near turbines.

Sound study under way

Dr. Michael A. Nissenbaum, a diagnostic radiologist at the Northern Maine Medical Center, disagrees with McCunney.

Nissenbaum spearheaded a pilot study in Mars Hill, Maine, in which he examined people living within 3,500 feet of 27 1.5-megawatt turbines, and compared them with people of similar demographics who lived three miles away.

He found the 22 people living nearest to the turbines took four times as many new or increased prescription medications, and also suffered higher incidences of sleep deprivation.

“The question then becomes, ‘Do industrial-sized wind turbines placed close to people’s homes result in chronic sleep disturbances?’ The answer is an unequivocal yes,” Nissenbaum said.

Nissenbaum recommended any turbine of more than 1.5-megawatts should be at least 7,000 feet away from homes.

Back in Falmouth, Town Manager Robert Whritenour said he is aware of the noise complaints and the town has taken steps to mitigate the problem.

The Wind I turbine automatically shuts off when wind speeds reach 22 mph, Whritenour said, to reduce turbine noise when it is loudest. The town also hired Harris Miller Miller & Hanson Inc. of Burlington to conduct a sound study, the results of which will be released in the next two weeks, Whritenour said.

According to state Department of Environmental Protection air pollution and quality guidelines, a source of sound violates noise regulations when it increases the ambient sound level by more than 10 decibels.

The baseline noise level varies depending on the location.

Christopher Senie, a Westboro-based attorney representing 14 Blacksmith Shop Road neighbors, said noise tests should have been conducted earlier and he criticized town officials for skirting their own zoning requirements.

Senie said erecting a turbine in an industrial zone should have required a special permit process through the Falmouth Zoning Board of Appeals. But Senie said town officials mistakenly believe the special act of the Legislature authorizing the town to build and finance the turbine gave them a “free pass” regarding the special permit. “Towns are not exempt from their own zoning laws,” he said.

When asked about the special permit, Whritenour said, “I’m not going to get into that,” and he stressed that the project went through a detailed permitting process and followed all necessary rules “step by step.”

Senie and his clients met with the board of health recently to air their grievances. He wants to create a new health regulation regarding wind turbine noise and submit it to the board, which could then adopt it without approval from town meeting.

Falmouth Health Agent David Carignan said members of the board of health are doing independent research to familiarize themselves with the issue and will consider Senie’s suggestions.

“We’re not saying no to the people who want to talk about it,” Carignan said. “The board has not deliberated on a specific course of action other than to continue to participate in the discussion.”

THIRD FEATURE

Turbines too loud for you? Here take $5,000

“The lady that came said everyone else signed,” said Jarrod Ogden, 33, a farmer whose house would be directly opposite several 300-foot turbines once Shepherd’s Flat is completed. “But I know for a fact that some people didn’t. I’m all for windmills, but I’m not going to let them buy me like that. I think they’re just trying to buy cheap insurance.”

 SOURCE: The New York Times, www.nytimes.com

July 31 2010

By William Yardley,

IONE, Ore. — Residents of the remote high-desert hills near here have had an unusual visitor recently, a fixer working out the kinks in clean energy.

Patricia Pilz of Caithness Energy, a big company from New York that is helping make this part of eastern Oregon one of the fastest-growing wind power regions in the country, is making a tempting offer: sign a waiver saying you will not complain about excessive noise from the turning turbines — the whoosh, whoosh, whoosh of the future, advocates say — and she will cut you a check for $5,000.

“Shall we call it hush money?” said one longtime farmer, George Griffith, 84. “It was about as easy as easy money can get.”

Mr. Griffith happily accepted the check, but not everyone is taking the money. Even out here — where the recession has steepened the steady decline of the rural economy, where people have long supported the massive dams that harness the Columbia River for hydroelectric power, where Oregon has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in tax incentives to cultivate alternative energy — pockets of resistance are rising with the windmills on the river banks.

Residents in small towns are fighting proposed projects, raising concerns about threats to birds and big game, as well as about the way the giant towers and their blinking lights spoil some of the West’s most alluring views.

Here, just west of where the Columbia bends north into Washington, some people are fighting turbines that are already up and running. In a region where people often have to holler to be heard over the roar of the wind across the barren hills, they say it is the windmills that make too much noise.

“The only thing we have going for us is the Oregon state noise ordinance,” said Mike Eaton, an opponent of the turbines.

Oregon is one of a growing number of places that have drafted specific regulations restricting noise from wind turbines. The Oregon law allows for noise to exceed what is considered an area’s ambient noise level by only a certain amount. But what those ambient levels are is sometimes disputed, as is how and where they should be measured.

And while state law limits turbine noise, the state office that once enforced industrial noise laws, housed within the Department of Environmental Quality, was disbanded in 1991, long before wind power became a state priority.

“We have the regulations still on the books, and entities are expected to comply with those regulations,” said William Knight, a spokesperson for the Department of Environmental Quality. “But there really isn’t anybody from D.E.Q. going around to find out if that’s occurring. I’m not sure who you’d call out there in Columbia Gorge.”

Local government is one answer. In May, after testimony from private acoustic experts, the Morrow County Planning Commission agreed with Mr. Eaton, his wife, Sherry, and a small group of other opponents that Willow Creek, a wind farm directly behind the Eatons’ modest house on Highway 74, was indeed exceeding allowable noise levels. The commission ordered the company that operates the site, Invenergy, to come into compliance within six months.

Invenergy quickly appealed — and so did the Eatons and their allies. The county’s board of commissioners also asked the planning commission to clarify its decision. A hearing is scheduled for this month.

“The appeals were all based on the same questions,” said Carla McLane, the county planning director. “What does ‘not in compliance’ mean, and what does it take to be in compliance in six months?”

Opponents say the constant whooshing from the turbines makes them anxious and that the low-level vibrations keep them awake at night. Some say it gives them nausea and headaches. Many other residents say they hear little or nothing at all, and the question of whether windmill noise can harm health is in dispute.

Critics say those complaining about Willow Creek are just angry that they were not able to lease their land to wind developers. Some opponents say they would be happy if Invenergy just turned certain turbines off at night, but others say they want reimbursement for losing their pastoral way of life.

“What we’re really trying to do is get Invenergy to the bargaining table,” said Dan Williams, a builder who is part of the group frustrated with the noise from Willow Creek.

While Invenergy is still dealing with the noise issue even after Willow Creek, which has 48 turbines, has been up and running for more than 18 months, Caithness Energy, the company asking some residents to sign waivers allowing noise to exceed certain limits, hopes it can solve the issue up front. It also has more at stake.

Caithness is building a much larger wind farm adjoining Willow Creek called Shepherd’s Flat. The new farm is expected to have 338 turbines and generate more than 900 megawatts when it is completed in 2013, which would make it one of the largest wind facilities in the country.

Large farms like Shepherd’s Flat are regulated by the state. Tom Stoops, the council secretary for the Oregon Energy Facility Siting Council, said that large projects must prove they would comply with the noise ordinance and that noise waivers, or easements, were among the solutions. Asked if it was common for companies to pay people to sign such easements, Mr. Stoops said, “That’s probably a level of detail that doesn’t come to us.”

Ms. Pilz, the local Caithness representative, did not volunteer the information that Caithness offers people money to sign noise easements, though she eventually confirmed in an interview that it did. She also would not say how much money it offers, though several property owners said she had offered them $5,000.

“What we don’t do in general is change the market price for a waiver,” Ms. Pilz said. “That’s not fair.”

Some people who did not sign said that Ms. Pilz made them feel uncomfortable, that she talked about how much Shepherd’s Flat would benefit the struggling local economy and the nation’s energy goals, and that she suggested they were not thinking of the greater good if they refused.

“The lady that came said everyone else signed,” said Jarrod Ogden, 33, a farmer whose house would be directly opposite several 300-foot turbines once Shepherd’s Flat is completed. “But I know for a fact that some people didn’t. I’m all for windmills, but I’m not going to let them buy me like that. I think they’re just trying to buy cheap insurance.”

Photo by Lynda Barry: Home in a Wind Farm: Butler Ridge Project, Town of Herman, Dodge County, Wisconsin, May 2009

In a story published in the Chicago Reader last week, a lobbyist for the wind industry gave us his take on what's really behind the complaints of those living too close to 400 foot wind turbines.

Although we don't agree with this psychological assessment of families who are having trouble living with the PSC-approved setbacks, we present his statement to give you a glimpse into the soul of a lobbyist for Big Wind.

CLICK HERE to read the full story on line.

“You can’t stop a project in Wisconsin based on the appearance of these turbines,” [Michael Vickerman] says, “so over the past seven years the opposition has refined its arguments and framed them in the realm of protecting public health and safety.Here, as far as I’m concerned, is where they reveal their antiwind bias.

They allege that they can’t sleep, they suffer from nausea—they express their discomfort in the most hysterical terms, and I think they basically work themselves into a very visceral hatred for wind.I don’t even know if they have a philosophical objection to wind. They’re maybe congenitally unhappy people and they needed to project their fears and anxieties and resentments onto something new that comes into the neighborhood and disrupts things.”

-Michael Vickerman, as reported by the Chicago Reader, May 14, 2009

We also present the following story from a family living in a PSC approved wind farm with a wind turbine less than 1300 feet from their door.

They spoke to us on the evening of May 2, 2009, at their home which is located in Dodge County near the Town of Oakfield, Wisconsin.

Ann and Jason Wirtz bought their home on June 1st, 1996. It’s a pretty Wisconsin farmhouse near the Town of Oakfield in Dodge County. It’s the kind of place that had people stopping by to ask if the family would consider selling it.

“They’d just pull into our driveway,” says Ann. “There were people who said if we ever decided to sell it, we should call them.”

Although turn-of-the-century house needed a lot of work when they bought it, they didn’t mind. The Wirtz family planned to stay. Ann and Jason both grew up in the area and wanted to raise their children there.

“ I thought we were going to live here for the rest of our lives.” says Ann, a mother of four. “I thought one of our kids was going to live here after us.”

This was before 86 industrial wind turbines went up around their home as part of the Forward Energy wind project which began operation in March of 2008. The closest turbine is to the Wirtz home is less than 1300 feet from their door.

Wirtz family home, near Town of Byron, Fond Du Lac County, WIsconsin Photo By Gerry Meyer May 2, 2009“Last night it was whining,” said Ann. “It wasn’t just the whoosh whoosh whoosh or the roaring. It was a high pitched whine. And I don’t just hear them, I can feel them.” She describes feeling like a beat in her head. A pulse that matches the turbine’s rhythm.
“Last night was really bad,” she said.

She says she knows which nights are going to be loud by which way the turbine blades are facing, and her family dreads the nights when the wind is out of the west. “That’s when they are the loudest.”

Jason said he found out there was a wind farm planned for his area from a neighbor he ran into at the post office. “He asked me if I knew anything about the turbines coming in. I didn’t.” Jason came home and mentioned it to Ann.

“When I first heard about it I wasn’t that alarmed.” says Ann, “People were saying how bad they could be, but I just didn’t believe them at first.”

She assumed the turbines would be sited much further away from her home, unaware of the controversy over the setbacks approved by the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin which allows turbines to be sited close as 1000 feet to the homes of people like the Wirtzes.

“All those orange flags they put in were way back there. I was thinking it wouldn’t be too bad. And then when that access road started coming in so close I said, ‘what the heck is going on?’

Meanwhile, Jason had been attending town meetings and learning more about the project. The more he learned, the more worried he became. Five months before the turbines went up, the Wirtz family decided to sell their house.

They called people who had let them know they’d be interested in buying it. “When they found out about the turbines,” said Ann, “They weren’t interested anymore.”

Wirtz family prepared the house to put on the market. In November of 2007, the home, sitting on eight acres, was appraised for $320,000. But this once sought-after property could find no buyers. “As soon as people found out about the wind farm coming in,” says Ann. “That was it. And once they started building the roads to the turbines, forget it. They’d ask what that road was for, we’d tell them and we’d never hear from them again.”

After the turbines went up, interested buyers stopped showing up altogether.

“We tried to find another realtor,” said Ann, “They’d ask ‘is it near the wind turbines?’ and when they found out it was, they wouldn’t even bother to come out to the house to look at it. One realtor told me it wasn’t worth her marketing dollars to even list it because if it was in the wind farm she knew she couldn’t sell it. I mean have you ever heard of a real estate agent turning down a chance to sell a house?”

Another realtor said they would have to price it well under $200,000 to get anyone to even look at it. “At that price we were going to be $50,000 worse than when we started, “ said Ann. “And that didn’t include the 12 years of work we put into the place.”

But the Wirtzes were increasingly anxious to get away from the turbines. While Jason, who works nights, wasn’t having much trouble with the turbine noise, it was keeping Ann and her children from sleeping well at night. They were tired all the time. They were also getting frequent headaches.

And there was trouble with their animals as well. The Wirtz family raise alpaca and have a breeding herd. Ann says the alpaca became jumpy the first day the turbines went on line. “Normally they are so calm. But the day the towers started up, they seemed to panic. They were on their back legs right away.”

Ann says the herd had always been docile and healthy, with no breeding problems. Since the wind farm started up, their temperament has changed and none of the females have been able to carry a pregnancy to full term. “ They’re nervous all the time now. And I can’t prove anything but I do know my animals. And I really felt something was wrong. All the years we’ve had them we’ve never had a problem.”

At night the herd shelters in the large metal shed behind the Wirtz home. When the turbines are loud, Ann says the sound echoes inside the shed and the metal vibrates and hums. “The noise in here gets just unbelievable. When the tin starts to vibrate in here, they can’t stand it. I have to find them a better home. This is torture for them.”

The same turbine noise has driven Ann out of her own bedroom “I can’t stand to be in that room anymore. I don’t sleep at all. My sleep has been terrible.” Instead she sleeps on the couch where a fan on their pellet stove helps counter the turbine noise. “My number one complaint is how tired I am all the time,” says Ann, “I never had that before, ever.”

Says Jason, “We don’t have air conditioning, we didn’t want it and we didn’t need it. In the summer we just opened the windows and let cross breezes cool the house. But the first summer with the turbine noise we had to shut the windows and turn on the fan. We couldn’t stand it.”

After one of the children was recently diagnosed with a severe stress-related illness, the Wirtzes decided they’d had enough. They decided the health of their family was more important than keeping their home, and they are abandoning it.

“Now, after all the trouble we’ve had living here” said Ann, “ If a family showed up and wanted to buy the place and they had kids, I don’t think I could sell it to them. Knowing what I know about living here, I just don’t think I could put another family through this.”

They are now looking for a place in a nearby village. “We were born and raised in the country but we’re thinking of moving to Oakfield because they aren’t going to plop a 400 foot turbine in the middle of the village, says Jason. “And I know I’m going to have to drive by this place every day on my way to work. It’s going to make me sick to see it, but I can’t stay here anymore.”

Ann adds, “I say we move near whoever it is that decides on the setbacks because you know they’ll never have a turbine by their place”

Jason and Ann sit at the dining room table and point out the elaborate woodwork they’d stripped and re-finished by hand. Jason holds a picture of the farmhouse from happier days. Earlier that day they’d met with the people at the bank to let them know they were giving up their home.

Jason says, “At least we’re young enough to start over. My mom, she doesn’t have much money and now she has turbines around her house. She said, ‘This house was my retirement,’ Her and my dad put everything into that house. Now I don’t know what she’s going to do.” Jason says, “The quality of life we had here is just gone.”

“I grew up here, and I loved it here,” Says Jason, “But I don’t any more.”

Part of the Wirtz family Alpaca herd. Photo by Gerry Meyer

Note from the BPWI Research Nerd: Though the wind industry continues to deny any negative effects on animals caused by wind turbines, click here to read a BBC report which tells a different story.

[Download a copy of this story by clicking here]

Why did the people who once lived in this house have to abandon it?

And why won't the Wisconsin State Journal take this issue seriously?

The home in the photo above was made uninhabitable by wind turbine noise and vibration. The family who once lived here were forced to abandon their home in 2006. Three years later, it remains empty and unsold. To read more about this story, click here

When the United States Congress asked the Congressional Research Service to prepare a report on Wind Power in the United States, what setbacks did energy policy experts recommend in order to mitigate problems associated with turbine noise and shadow flicker?

The answer can be found on page 32 of the report: a minimum setback of 2640 feet.

American taxpayers spend nearly $100 million a year to fund the Congressional Research Service, a "think tank" that provides reports to members of Congress on a variety of topics relevant to current political events. We paid for this report. We'd like our lawmakers to pay attention to the results.

While wind developers continue to assert the adequacy of setbacks as close as 440 feet from participating landowner's homes, and 1000 feet from non-participating resident's homes, and as they continue to downplay serious noise and shadow flicker problems documented by residents of wind farms in Fond du Lac and Dodge Counties in Wisconsin, there is pending legislation which would make such setbacks mandatory for the entire state. (click here to find out more)

There is legislation to give Wisconsin State residents considerably less protection than recommended by the energy policy specialists who authored the Congressional Research Report entitled,

Wind Power in the United States: Technology, Economic, and Policy Issues

Download the entire Congressional Research Report report by clicking here

Order Code RL34546

CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE
Report prepared for Members and Committees of Congress
June 20, 2008

Page 32:

"All wind turbines produce mechanical and aerodynamic noise. Noise is thus a siting criterion for regulatory purposes.

Early wind turbine models were often loud, especially downwind versions (blades behind the generator). Newer models are designed to minimize noise.

Like visual aesthetics, wind turbine noise is often a matter of individual preferences and tolerances. For residences over 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) from a wind turbine, noise is generally not an issue.

Shadow flicker, also know as shadow casting or blinking, is defined as alternating changes in light intensity caused by the moving blades casting shadows on the ground or objects.

No flicker shadow will be cast when the sun is obscured by clouds or when the turbine is not rotating. This phenomenon can be annoying for residents who live very close to turbines.

Computer simulations can help project developers position turbines so that flicker does not interfere with nearby residences. Shadow flicker generally does not affect residences located 10 rotor diameters or more (about 0.5 miles) from the turbine, except possibly early in the morning or late in the evening when shadows are long.

Jeffrey Logan and Stan Mark Kaplan
Specialists in Energy Policy
Resources, Science, and Industry Division

QUESTION:

Why won't the Wisconsin State Journal investigate the source of the PSC's 1000 foot setback? Why won't they send a reporter to investigate complaints of problems with turbine noise, shadow flicker and homes that will not sell in the wind farms of Fond du Lac and Dodge Counties? Why do they continue to use the word "NIMBY"?

To read the Wisconsin State Journal "Nimby" editorial which ran on March 20, 2009, click here.

This editorial cartoon ran on March 23, 2009

Readers sent in their responses, here is one of them:

"Your editorial on Friday, March 20, and your editorial cartoon on March 23 look more like a PR campaign in support of proposed legislation than a reasoned position and would have far more credibility if the WSJ had actually done some reporting on the issue of the placement of wind turbines too close to homes, rather than just editorializing.

It seems inconsistent that the WSJ with its strong interest in public information would not have investigated how the Public Service Commission arrived at their minimal setbacks.

As desirable as wind is as an alternative, non-fossil fuel source of energy, large turbine wind farms have already caused harm to Wisconsin residents where wind turbines have been placed too close to their homes. Anyone wanting to get an idea of living next to a large wind turbine can type in "wind turbines" at YouTube or look at betterplan.squarespace.com.

You trivialize the experiences of these people by your insistence on the NIMBY cliché.

Doug Zweizig

For residents of Wisconsin wind farms who are having trouble living with the noise and shadow flicker caused by 400 foot tall wind turbines sited too close to homes, the cartoon felt more like this:

This response was sent to the Wisconsin State Journal from the BPWI Research Nerd, who also did the alteration on the editorial cartoon above.,

"Dear Editor,

For the residents of the wind farms in Fond du Lac and Dodge County who are now suffering from turbine noise and shadow flicker problems, whose kids can’t sleep at night, and whose homes can find no buyers, the cartoon you featured of the man screaming the word “NIMBY” added to their hopelessness of ever having their story told.

Personally, that cartoon made me wonder why the Wisconsin State Journal is either ignoring this story or purposefully suppressing it. As journalists, you have an obligation to present the whole story. Instead, you consistently brush off the other side of the story off with the word “NIMBY”.

Why?

Even the evening news in Milwaukee at least took the issue seriously enough to send a reporter. Would you like to see what he found?

Here’s the report:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiSpToi982A

I’m a writer and a cartoonist and I’ve been working in print media all of my life. I’ve never had this experience with a paper before. Your absolute unwillingness to investigate the problems associated with putting turbines too close to homes and too close to sensitive wildlife areas is unlike any journalistic practice I know of. What on earth is behind it?

I’ve done work for NPR, the New York Times, The LA Times, Newsweek, Esquire, Salon.com and many other national and local publications. I tell you this in the hopes that you may pause and at least momentarily regard me as a colleague, before you write me off as yet another NIMBY.

As a colleague, I’m telling you there is a BIG Wisconsin story here. There are big problems. People are in misery. Why won’t you cover this story?

Home for sale, near the Town of Byron, Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin Winter 2008

All of the following photos were taken in the last year in Fond du Lac and Dodge counties.

MORE RESPONSES TO THE MARCH 20th EDITORIAL:

"I bet none of the pro wind people commenting on sound or health effects live in an industrial wind farm.

I live in the Forward project erected by Invenergy of Chicago, IL. It is h- - -, to put it mildly.

For you who say you drove out and parked under a wind turbine and didn't hear any annoying sound you are not too bright, but you do fit right in to the energy company's way of doing business.

They take people out, park at the base of a turbine and let them to listen.

I thought we all knew sound [...] emanates from the source. In the case of large industrial wind turbines the sound is louder at 1500’ than 1000’ at my house.

To [the person who was] commenting on shadow flicker that “a camera is linear vs. the eye which is logarithmic” is nonsense to the families that are experiencing shadow flicker.

It is somewhat like a child turning the light switch on and off as fast as he can or a camera flash going off continuously.

Energy companies say shadow flicker is minimal and “can” be eliminated by [pre-construction]computer [modeling]programs.

Can be, but won’t be eliminated. Is 41 minutes a day twice a year for six weeks, minimal? [84 days out of the year--]. I don’t think so.

Sound is like that of a jet taking off or flying over, but it continues for days at a time. Often two of the industrial turbines are pounding away with the sound of a Chinook helicopter lifting a heavy load.

Some pro-wind people say “I live near the highway, or train tracks or airport.

First of all those sounds last a few minutes at a time. Industrial wind turbines emit their sound for hours and days-at-a-time emitting low frequency noise that often we may not hear, however the body knows is present, therefore sleep is non-existent, or interrupted.

Some feel their sleep is OK, but no longer dream-- meaning no deep sleep.

Many of the residents of this Invenergy industrial wind farm are experiencing many health affects from the constant sound and vibrations such as: migraines and other headaches, dizziness, nausea, loss of balance, tenseness, anxiety, lack of motivation, loss of memory and ringing and buzzing in the ears to list a few.

Energy companies like to say the sound is about as loud as your refrigerator. That is BS. Or they say it is soothing like the wind blowing in the trees or the waves on the ocean. Absolute BS.

I have already listed what they really sound like. What is most annoying is the pro wind. “green” and renewable people believe the outrageous lies of the energy companies, yet [disregard] the first hand experiences of the people who live in large industrial wind farms.

You see on TV the beautiful golden grain with the slow turning turbines. That is just another lie, but it does influence the uneducated.

Mr. Vickerman of Renew Wisconsin states that at 1000’ wind turbines are barely audible. I know the industrial wind turbines are always very audible at over 1500’ away. The only time the turbines are not audible is when they are not turning.

If wind energy is viable let private industry develop it without our tax dollars and production incentives. It wouldn’t happen because it is extremely expensive and horribly inefficient.

The Forward project in the second and third quarter of last year produced at 28 and 17.5% of its capacity respectively. At the same time the Point Beach nuclear facilities produced at 99 and 87% of it’s capacity. One quarter was lower due to shut down for refueling.

The project engineer at the Blue Sky project in Johnsburg told me the turbines are designed to be 27 to 30% of their capacity.

Wind energy is clean? Do you think about where the iron ore comes from? Do you think about the energy to smelt the 100,000’s of thousands of pounds of steel for each turbine?

Do you think about how those components get to the leased land to be erected and the trucks used to haul all the gravel for the access roads and the concrete bases to name just a few of the [construction requirements]? Do you think wind energy reduces carbon output? Maybe it increases it?

The environmental impact statement for this project says that wildlife will not be negatively impacted.

In the last year I have seen one turkey and no deer. We used to see 16 to 20 turkeys almost daily and deer in our gardens. Other neighbors have experienced the same findings.

Another lie of the energy companies is that property values actually go up in an industrial wind farm.

Properties for sale in this wind farm for sale since last spring don’t even get lookers or as soon as they ask about the turbines they leave.

What the State of Wisconsin needs a moratorium on industrial wind turbine construction until all the health issues can be understood, reduce the renewable portfolio standards our legislature has required and leave the siting of the industrial wind turbines to local governments.

The Public Service Commission is responsible for the inexcusable set backs and sound standards we now are forced to live with. There no longer is quality of life for those that live in the industrial wind farms of Wisconsin."

Another Response:

"The last thing that industrial wind power can do is stop the burning of coal in coal burning power plants.

What industrial scale wind turbines can do is give a funny looking greenish hat to a coal dependent electrical utility industry.

Lets face it Industrial wind turbines are the green energy (ENRON) scam we have all been fearing. Wind turbines aren't base load, wind turbines aren't reserve load. They are just intermittent load that the transmission grid people (ATC), has to deal with,

This why Wisconsin Public Service Corporation (WPS) wants to build a power line up to Manitoba Hydro's reservoirs north of Lake Winnipeg, in Canada, so it doesn't have to pay to put WPS wind generation on the grid at night at a loss.

Industrial wind is such a loser of a renewable energy option for Wisconsin. Check out the Wisconsin Wind Resource Assessment Program (WRAP) Final Report, available at the Focus On Energy website. Wisconsin rate payers pay for this site.There is also the AWS Truewind report. Both play up winds potential, but end only showing a "marginal" to "fair" wind resource, especially when compared to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) wind maps. Oh, and the WRAP report states, yeah, guess what the wind blows a lot at night in Wisconsin. So that noise, loss of sleep, health and safety. Yep, thats all real as steel when your operating industrial scale machinery at night.

The safe and reliable answers for Wisconsin are solar and biomass cogeneration and biorefining. Coal is biomass. You replace biomass with biomass. You get jobs. You get money staying in state, and not going to the Powder River Basin. Solar power is grid independence, and insurance against for when the grid goes down. When the grid goes down no industrial wind turbines will turn...or maybe can't stop turning. Nobody has ever heard a solar panel sound like a jet.

Hold on tight Wisconsin, and let this Industrial Wind Scam blow on by."

Another response:

"We all know who the PSC is so let’s look at the definition of stakeholder.

stakeholder : a person or group that has an investment, share, or interest in something, as a business or industry.

Do you seriously believe that The PSC and their friends the stakeholders are going to do anything to develop standards that will restrict the amount of turbines they can install?

Mr. Vickerman at Renew Wisconsin has stated several times that if siting setback distances are increased it will be the end of wind turbine development in Wisconsin.

Most recently he stated that if the distance from a property line was increased from 440’ to 1000’ there would not be a single commercial wind project operating in Wisconsin today.

If the PSC gets control of siting the setbacks will decrease if anything. Any increase in setbacks would be an admission that they have been doing it wrong so far, and that will never happen.

The irresponsible shoehorning of 400’ tall industrial wind turbines must stop.

Wind power is expensive, subsidized $23.37 per MWh compared to $0.25 for natural gas. As taxpayers and rate payers we deserve a better bang for our buck.

Wind power is unreliable and not dispatchable so no coal plants will ever be shut down no matter how many turbines are installed. Coal plants continue to run at full power when wind power is on line, the gas and hydro plants are throttled back, and that is our cleanest form of electric generation.

If the PSC and their stakeholders get their way they will cover over one million acres of land in the next few years. A few of the adverse effects of this large taking of private land are:

1 Loss of Med Flight service for sick or injured citizens.
2 Farmers will loose the ability to crop dust their fields.
3 Wind turbines and tornadoes look the same on Nexrad radar. Meteorologists will not be able to accurately predict the path and location of tornadoes or severe storms.
4 Property values inside wind facilities and a 5 mile boundary outside will decrease by 50% or more.
5 Serious adverse health effects will plague residents especially children under 6 years and adults over 65 yeas.

The good thing is Wisconsin can produce all the clean renewable energy we need without any wind turbines. We have a tremendous bio fuel and bio mass resource. We do not have a wind resource. Wind developer can extrapolate their wind data till they are blue in the face, but they can’t make the wind blow.

Contact your State Representatives, and Senators and tell them not to support the siting reform legislation that will eradicate local control of industrial wind turbines. Your Town, City, and County Board members that you elected know the best way to protect your health safety and welfare.

Nimby: a person who wants to put a turbine in everyone’s back yard except his"

Another Response:

"A picture says a thousand words. Here’s the link to the Governor’s Global Warming Task Force final report. http://dnr.wi.gov/environmentprotect/gtfgw/documents/Final_Report.pdf

On the report page labeled 15, you will see a pie chart showing predictions of electric generation in 2024. Wind turbines do not appear to be the silver bullet that rids us of coal plants and carbon emissions that wishful thinking and unsubstantiated statements claim it to be.

If you look at the pie chart that illustrates wind energy contributions by 2024, the wind share of percentage of output is based on a 29% capacity factor, which other previous posters would acknowledge would be exaggerated.

That information is available on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission site. The chart implies that it's reflecting generated power and not installed capacity.

I think if I’m calculating this correctly, and it of course depends on the size of the turbine, if you take the total amount of projected electricity generation in GWh for 2024, the projected 6% contribution of wind at the projected capacity factor of 29% would be equal to well over 10,000 wind turbines installed by 2024.

Right now if we look at the acreage taken for a new wind project in the state, we have Blue Sky Green Field with 88 turbines stretching over 10,600 acres, that’s an average of 120 acres per turbine.

Over 10,000 wind turbines is over 1,200,000 acres of land under wind turbine owners control, many of them foreign investment companies (look at a land host contract).

That also means $4000 per year per installed megawatt in shared revenues over the life of a project which is 25 to 30 years sponsored by Wisconsin tax payers.

If we take the theoretical 10,000 wind turbines X 1.5MW each that’s 15000 MW X $4000 X 25 years. That’s $60 million a year for 25 years for an energy source that’s not dispatchable, can’t be stored, uses grid power for operations and false starts and does not appear to be freeing us from our dependency on coal or foreign oil at 6% of the total, (coal is still at 56% and look at gas and oil up 15%).

The decisions made concerning this type of electric generation requires a big costly long term commitment with insignificant returns. This of course is on top of the human and wild life impacts which are supported by substantiated documentation."

Another Response:

Industrial wind power has nothing to do with national security, or energy independence from oil. Wind is about a lot of infrastructure dollars being spent in the wrong place for the wrong equipment. Our state government needs to look very carefully at what the wind industry is saying and what it will actually means for the state, it's citizens, and the quality of life going into the future. ... For everyone.

The Governor's Task Force on Global Warming (GTFGW)was working with a chart that showed Wisconsin's electrical generation would reach a total of 92,704 GWh in 2024. Wind generation would be 6% of that total, or 5,562.24 GWh. Now, if the wind turbines are 29% efficient like the GTFGW hopes, each 1.5 MW turbine would generate .435MWh. In order to reach the 5,562.24GWh stated you would need 12,787 wind turbines!

The wind developer in our area stated the turbines would only be 25% efficient, or generate .375MWh each, per year. At that efficiency rate the wind industry would need to install 14,750 1.5mw wind turbines.

And, they'd all be noisy at night, and the noise would get worse as they aged and got dirtier. Much like the wind industry's arguments.

The developer also stated, to the newspaper not to the public, his 100MW ( 67, 1.5MW wind turbines) wind facility would 'cover 6000 to 8000 acres'. If wind turbines that size require 100 acres of 'wind resource', the wind developer's 67 turbine wind farm would gobble up 6,700 acres of Wisconsin farm, home, and wildlife habitat. The wind turbine lease contracts signed by fellow citizens, or school boards, or townships, municipalities, or political subdivisions not here yet mentioned would be binding, and any violation there of would be subject to legal action by the wind developer, which may not find financial compensation sufficient. i.e. the lease signers land too!

When you add all the GTFGW required turbines together that means 1,278,700 to 1,475,000 Wisconsin acres would be bound into wind development contracts for decades and generations.

This doesn't sound like security, this sounds like servitude. When you add in the fact that land owners who sign a wind development lease are being paid $50 per acre of resource, while the wind developer gets between $2,000 to $3,000 per acre of resource, it starts to sound like share cropping.

If Wisconsin wants independence and security it requires the responsible investment in solar. Biomass will replace coal, and oil. The wind industry is no friend of Wisconsin. Oh and if industrial wind is going to be 90% of an eventual 25% renewables by 2025 you have to multiply the number of wind turbines and land grabbing by 4.

Another Response:

" In the opinion article "Don't blow chance for wind power", the phrase "not in my backyard" is used to describe a negative attitude of being resistant to wind farm development.

It's also stated that local governments lack the expertise to evaluate these developments.

So where should a local government turn to if they lack this expertise, to wind companies with financial implications in the development, or doctors and scientists who don't stand to make much, if any money from their expertise?

I would choose the doctors and scientists, which is what the local governments that are adopting stringent ordinances have been doing.

With increases in research and personal accounts of the health problems, property value losses, and even environmental issues caused by wind turbines, there's no wonder why local governments are adopting ordinances which increase the distance that the turbines can be built from homes and businesses.

Even without the issues that are documented by doctors and researchers, all a person has to do is look at articles which are written by people who live by, and deal with the turbines.

It seems almost every area that has a wind farm, also has a great deal of personal accounts of the problems they cause, and this information can be easily found on the internet.

Another question is why are we even talking about wind turbines? With all the issues they cause, their inefficiency, and other options with very few documented issues (solar, geothermal), why are we not putting money towards other options?

It seems that the discussion continues because wind farm developers have a huge financial stake, and have marketed wind as being the best option.

I agree we need to reduce our use of coal and oil, but bringing in another problem energy source is not the answer. Because of all the above, I also agree, NOT IN MY BACKYARD!!!"

CLICK ON THE IMAGE BELOW TO SEE just how close to homes the PSC allows turbines to be sited. Then click on the image below that to see how close they allowed wind developers to site tubines along side Wisconsin's Horicon Marsh, National Wildlife refuge.

Then contact your legislators to let them know the PSC approved the siting of turbines 1000 feet from non-participating residents homes, 440 feet from hosting landowner's homes, with a noise limit of 50 decibels. They allowed turbines to be sited too close to the Horicon Marsh. Residents in the PSC approved wind farms of Fond du Lac and Dodge Counties are now having a hard time living with the disastrous results. Post construction studies are showing bat and bird kills. (Click here to read more about this)

Let your legislators know if they want wind turbine siting reform, it should be based it on the Town of Union's Large Wind Ordinance, not not on numbers provided to the PSC by a Florida Utility. (Click here to read more on this)

(Click here to download the Union Ordinance)

(Click here to download the Wisconsin draft Model ordinance, which has since been pulled from the PSC website)

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD A DRAFT OF SENATOR PLALE'S BILL

Click on the image below to see just why shadow flicker is so maddening: These images were filmed in various locations inside of the Invenergy wind farm near the Town of Byron, 2008

This home in Nova Scotia is now abandoned due to noise from industrial wind turbines the same size as those proposed for our community. There are 17 turbines in all at this wind farm. The closest one is 1000 feet from the house. (Read Full Story Here)

Q. Are there health and safety issues associated with living close to industrial wind turbines which I should be concerned about?

Here is the October 10, 2007 response to this question by Dr. Nina Pierpont, MD, PhD, who has conducted some of the most intensive medical studies on the effects of wind turbines on human health and safety:

"Yes, there are indeed medical problems caused by noise and vibration from current, upwind, three bladed industrial wind turbines. I am in the process of preparing a paper for publication in a medical journal documenting the consistency of these problems from family to family, the study subjects being a collection of families in several different English-speaking countries who have been driven from their homes by problems with sleep, headaches, tinnitus, equilibrium, concentration, memory, learning, mood, and child behavior -- problems which started when the turbines went into operation and which resolve when the family is away from the turbines. These problems all occur in proximity to recently built industrial turbines, put into operation in 2005, 2006, and 2007.

The ear is indeed the most sensitive receptor for noise and vibration. This does not mean, however, that if you cannot hear it, it cannot hurt you. The ear does more than hear. A number of the effects of noise and vibration from wind turbines appear to be mediated by the inner ear, which is a complex organ, one of whose functions is detecting certain sorts of vibration as noise. The inner ear also detects movement, acceleration, and position relative to gravity, has direct feedback onto eye movement, and has established linkages with anxiety centers in the brain.

People disturbed by noise and vibration from industrial wind turbines generally can hear the noise when it bothers them, though it may not seem particularly loud. Several people I have interviewed speak favorably of living next to an elevated urban train line, compared to living at their rural home next to wind turbines. They can sleep with traffic or train noise, but not with the wind turbine noise/vibration. They consistently described a penetrating and intrusive quality to the wind turbine noise, several describing in different ways a very disturbing feeling that the noise is somehow inside their bodies. This latter effect suggests detection of vibration in body cavities, especially since people who say this generally localize the feeling to their chest or their head.

Published research from Sweden (thesis by Pedersen and published papers incorporated into the thesis) shows that the percentage of annoyed people (which include people who move out or undertake major house renovations to try to do something about the noise) goes up at 37.5-40 dBA. This is probably because A-weighted noise representations are not capturing the parts of the wind turbine noise and vibration spectrum which are disturbing. The Pedersen studies are also based on modeled noise, not actual measurements, though there is a close correlation between actual dBA measurements and the Swedish governmental modeling protocols, the author says. Even if we do not know exactly what parts of the noise and vibration spectrum are bothersome, and to what extent these are represented in a dBA measurement, we have in the Pedersen research clear evidence that when noise is modeled prior to wind turbine construction, the allowed levels of noise should not be over 37.5 to 40 dBA outside of dwellings. Because the noise level is especially important at night, and it is at night that there tends to be a "stable atmosphere," with cool, still air at ground level and a brisk wind at turbine hub height, modeling of noise prior to wind turbine construction should use both a 37.5 to 40 dBA ceiling of tolerability, and van den Berg’s models of noise propagation in a stable atmosphere.

Sincerely,
Nina Pierpont, MD, PhD

   Although wind developers downplay or even deny there are adverse affects of living too close to wind turbines, there are serious, documented health and safety issues for people living closer than a mile and a half of an industrial wind turbine. There are concerns about effects on livestock. In Wisconsin there is no set back law. An industrial wind turbine could be built 1000 feet of your house or barn whether you want it there or not. The wind developer for our area has said they will not site a turbine closer than 1150 feet from a residence, but they admit they are measuring from the center tower supporting the turbine. The blades are 130 feet each, which means that the distance from the blade tip of the turbine to your door can be 1020 feet

On the issue of setbacks, Dr. Pierpont says, "I consider a 1.5 mile set-back a minimum figure. In hilly or mountainous topographies, where valleys act as natural channels for noise, this 1.5 mile set-back should be extended anywhere from 2-3 miles from homes.
Let me be clear: there is nothing, absolutely nothing, in the wind energy proposition that says windmills must be sited next door (often 1000 feet) to people's homes and workplaces. Siting, after all, is the crux of the issue.
Irresponsible siting is what most of the uproar is about. Corporate economics favor building wind turbines in people's backyards; sound clinical medicine, however, does not.(Read the full report here)

 The Townships of Magnolia and Union are in the process of drafting ordinances which will include set back distances. Since a total of 70 turbines are proposed for our area (67 in Magnolia, 3 in Union) nearly everyone stands to be affected. (see a map of Magnolia high ground by clicking here. Though the wind developers say they don't yet have a reliable map of where the turbines may be sited, the high ground of our area is where the turbines will most likely be placed if the proposal goes through) There will be a meeting on Thursday, December 13, 2007 at 7pm for Magnolia Township at the Magnolia Town Hall, west of hiway 213 on County Road A, across from the church. ALL RESIDENTS OF MAGNOLIA, UNION AND SURROUNDING TOWNSHIPS ARE ENCOURAGED TO ATTEND! You can also contact us with your concerns and questions and we'll forward them to the zoning board. Contact us by clicking here or by writing to us at Better Plan, Rock County, PO Box 393, Footville, WI 53537. All names and contact information will be kept confidential. We will forward your questions and concerns only. The BPRC will not share your contact information with anyone.