Better Plan, Wisconsin

PART 3: THE FALMOUTH EXPERIENCE:

FLICKERING LIGHT

SOURCE: WGBH BOSTON

March 9, 2011

Residents in the town of Falmouth say that a nearly 400-foot wind turbine has severely impacted their quality of life.

They talk about noise issues, ringing in their ears and changes in pressure when they are outside.

But sound isn’t the only thing generating discontent.

As Sean Corcoran reports in the third part of our series, The Falmouth Experience: The Trouble with One Town’s Turbine, there also are complaints about a phenomenon called shadow flicker.

Malcom Donald sits in his kitchen, near some of the extra windows he and his wife installed last year. He says a light-flicker caused by the turbine’s blades have degraded his quality of life.

 FALMOUTH, Mass. — It’s just after 8 in the morning, and as a light show begins in the kitchen, Malcolm Donald goes over to his computer and fiddles with its music player.

“Well, is it time to put on Dancing Queen?” he asks. “You have to do something to make it a little more tolerable, and I’ve been putting on a little disco music.”

What just a few minutes ago was a well-lit kitchen now is filled with flashing light.

The reason stands some 1,900 feet away in the form of a 400-foot wind turbine at the town’s waste water treatment plant called Wind One. Some neighbors allege the noise from the turbine is making them sick. Donald feels fine. But what he does have is this “shadow flicker,” which creates a strobe light effect on the neighborhood as the sun rises behind the moving blades.

Filmed by Malcom Donald in his kitchen

“I don’t know why we should have to be exposed to this. Somebody’s put up a machine, we lived here 20 years, and now all of a sudden we have flashing lights in the morning,” said Donald.

The intense flashing can make reading, watching television and even having a conversation a challenge. A good analogy might be to imagine trying to read a book in a moving car as the sun flashes through the trees. Donald says that this time of year the flashing continues for about 30 minutes.

Two years ago, that wouldn’t have been too much of a problem. But last year Donald and his wife installed a half-dozen new windows in the rear of the house in an effort to eat breakfast with the sunlight.

“We’ve just done major renovations, taken out some walls so we can live here and enjoy the sunshine. And now the sunshine is flashing at us,” Donald said.

Shadow flicker outside the Donald home

Opponents of wind turbines typically give a wide range of reasons for opposing it. There’s talk about alleged human and animal health effects, questions about connecting to the electricity grid, and concerns about cost, industrial accidents, property values and general noise.

David McGlinchey of the non-partisan Manomet Center for Conservation Studies in Plymouth says shadow flicker often is another source of concern, but more of an annoyance.

“As far as we know, there are no health affects related to flicker. On the other hand, if that’s your house and it’s occurring when you want to eat breakfast, it’s an impact. It’s a nuisance,” explains McGlinchey.

In recent wind debates on Cape Cod, there’s been confusion about shadow flicker. Some speakers have said it can cause health effects. And it’s not uncommon to hear claims that the flashing light can cause epileptic seizures. Heather Goldstone says that’s unlikely to be a problem in Falmouth.

“I’ve seen two studies that directly address whether shadow flicker from wind turbines can cause seizures and they both conclude that the only risk comes from small turbines that turn quickly enough to cause shadows to flicker at least three times per second. At their fastest, the blades on Falmouth’s Wind 1 interrupt the sunlight once every second and a half. It’s just not fast enough to be a risk,” Goldstone said.

The primary reason Malcolm Donald opposes Falmouth’s wind turbines is because his neighbors say sound from Wind One is making them sick. But even flicker, he says, is reason enough to stop wind projects near neighborhoods. To his aggravation, when he makes such a suggestion, the reaction he often gets from wind advocates is skepticism and indifference.

“‘You know, ‘Get over it. You’ll get used to it.’ It’s maddening. A certain small segment of the population shouldn’t have to sacrifice for the good of the entire community,” Donald argues.

Unlike noise complaints, the source and scope of which are highly debated, shadow flicker is an impact turbine developers say can be predicted by computer modeling, and often avoided or at least mitigated.

But so far, Donald says he’s received little comfort from being advised to cover his windows, grow more trees in his yard and to keep his lights on in order to reduce the flicker.

More from this series:

The Falmouth Experience, Part 1: Life under the blades

The Falmouth Experience, Part 2: Sick from the noise

_

YOU CAN'T BE FORCING THIS ON PEOPLE

Source: WGBH Boston

March 8, 2011

In Part One of his series, The Falmouth Experience: The Trouble With One Town’s Wind Turbine, WGBH radio reporter Sean Corcoran spoke to Neil Anderson, a Falmouth resident who says the nearby wind turbine has had catastrophic effects on his health. Here’s more of their conversation, plus a series of photos of the log Anderson and his wife keep of the noise and its effects on them.

Jess Bidgood/WGBH

Neil Anderson sits in his kitchen.

Anderson says the noise from the wind turbine near his Falmouth home has caused emotional and physiological problems for he and his wife.

Neil Anderson: We knew there was a turbine going over there, we were not notified of any meetings or any type of concerns. In other words, there was no input from this residence.

I am an energy conservationist, I’ve had my own passive solar building company for 35 years. I was actually looking forward to that turbine being erected there. Although when it went up it was quite astounding the size of it.

I was proud looking at it from this viewpoint until it started turning. And it is dangerous, Sean. Headaches. Loss of sleep. And the ringing in my ears is constant. Never goes away. That started probably in May. It’s a constant reminder of that thing. I can look at it all day long, and it does not bother me. It’s quite majestic. But it’s way too close.

Sean Corcoran: How long after it started to spin did you start feeling some sort of symptoms?

Jess Bidgood/WGBH

The sign at the end of the Andersons' driveway, which is just over 1,000 feet away from the turbine.

Myself, it took me about a month and a half, maybe two months, to manifest all the symptoms. First it was the pressure in the head. The ears popping for no reason at all. Trying to get the water out of your ears and there was no water there. My wife, the first day, she feels it and notices it, and she feels it and notices it every day.

People talk about the noise, it gets loud. It gets jet-engine loud from this point right here. But the noise is the minimum component of that turbine. There is a pressure involved that gets into your ear, like you’re climbing at altitude in an airplane and your ears pop.

And there is a low-frequency pulse that particularly drives me crazy and some of the neighbors around here. It is a once-per-second low-frequency pulse, and it messes up your vestibular organs in your inner ear. And gives you a sense of off-balance and vertigo.

We both have signs of these symptoms. Headaches. My wife gets headaches three or four times a week, she wakes up with a headaches. She’s actually sleeping in a back bedroom right now with earplugs and a white noise machine trying to mask the sound. But it is really not doing any good because the sound just comes right through the windows, right through the insulation, right through the earplugs. And the pulse is right there.

Can you hear it right now?

You don’t hear it. It’s inaudible. There’s testimony from all over the country of the same thing, people complaining about the turbines. Denmark, Australia, Canada, the United States. But there is really no peer-reviewed medical info, which I hear all the time. Prove it, they’re saying. Prove it. Come down here and hear it yourself if you want.

And do you take that as people calling you a liar or people calling you a fool?

I’m not sure. I think they just don’t want to believe it. It’s so ironic, here I have to try to get that thing knocked down. Basically it’s a good principle, anything that can wean us off the number-two fuel, heating oil, and that type of thing is good for us, but it has to be done correctly. In this case it certainly wasn’t.

They look at us as being the bad aspect of this. But the people in the wind industry, you cannot turn a blind eye to this. You know about it.

I’m sorry we don’t have doctors that have come to prove it. I welcome anybody to come down here with their testing equipment and test what this thing does, but I will tell you, it does hurt the wind industry. And I know there are properly-sited wind projects out there that are getting knocked down because of this. But that’s okay too.

I think everybody should just stop for awhile and figure this out. You can’t just be forcing these on people.

The Andersons decided to keep a calendar to document the turbine’s noise and its effects on them. They let us photograph parts of their log:

Jess Bidgood/WGBH

 

Jess Bidgood/WGBH

 

Jess Bidgood/WGBH

 

Jess Bidgood/WGBH

 

Jess Bidgood/WGBH

 

Jess Bidgood/WGBH

FROM MONTANA

SENATE COMMITTEE HEARS TESTIMONY ON EMINENT DOMAIN BILL

SOURCE Great Falls Tribune, www.greatfallstribune.com

March 4 2011

KARL PUCKETT,

“They’re cheapskates and a foreign company trying to beat these farmers and ranchers,” said Quick, who said he was representing 10 angry cattle ranchers — eight Republicans and two Democrats — who oppose HB198.

Energy development and private property rights sharply clashed Thursday in a hearing before the Senate Energy and Telecommunications Committee over a bill that would allow developers of “merchant” transmission lines to take private land for the public good.

Testimony over House Bill 198, which had its first hearing in the Senate after previously being approved in the House, lasted more than three hours, with dozens of residents and informational witnesses speaking.

If the bill is passed, “a person” issued a certificate under the Major Facilities Citing Act to build transmission lines or other large infrastructure would have the right to initiate condemnation proceedings.

A decision last year by a Glacier County District Court judge who ruled Toronto-based Tonbridge Power Inc. did not have the authority to use eminent domain prompted the legislation. Tonbridge is building the 215-mile Montana Alberta Tie Line merchant transmission line between Great Falls and Lethbridge, and the ruling stalled the project.

With a merchant line, the developer accepts the risk of the project rather than ratepayers of a public utility, such as NorthWestern Energy. Merchant line developers finance construction by selling shipping rights to the line. In Tonbridge’s case, it sold capacity to wind farm developers who want to ship electricity generated in Montana to bigger markets.

Landowners see the bill as a change in state law for a single company, as well as a general expansion of eminent domain powers.

“This is just a sweetheart deal for a Canadian company, and allows them to condemn Montana farmland for their own use — and that’s just absolutely wrong,” said Larry Martin, a farmer from Conrad who owns land in path of MATL.

John Alke, an attorney representing Tonbridge and Montana Dakota Utilities, said the Glacier County judge’s ruling was only the second time a Montana court applied an “entity specific” standard to prevent an out-of-state developer from using eminent domain.

The first time, in 1907, the Legislature quickly passed a law ensuring a company’s eminent domain powers in building Hauser Dam, he said.

What matters in determining whether an entity has eminent domain power, Alke said, is whether the project benefits the public, not the type of entity doing the work.

If HB198 does not pass, “my client, MATL, is in serious trouble,” Alke said.

“It is in the middle of construction,” he said. “It has crews in the field.”

Derek Moretz, with wind farm developer NaturEner, said his company’s proposed $700 million Rim Rock Wind Farm in Glacier and Toole counties will not be built if MATL is not completed. Any holdup in building the line also could delay the wind farm because federal production tax credits are set to expire in 2012, he said.

“Without this eminent domain tool, we’re just not going to be able to develop these linear infrastructure projects,” said Brett Doney, president of Great Falls Development Authority.

Rep. Ken Peterson, R-Billings, the bill’s sponsor, said the bill doesn’t overhaul the current eminent domain law, but rather clarifies who can use it, including NorthWestern Energy.

Opponents of the bill disagreed with Peterson’s characterization, saying the Legislature never previously granted eminent domain power to a merchant line developer.

“This bill has a narrow motivation with broad affects,” said Beth Kaeding of Bozeman, past chair of the Northern Plains Resource Council.

Lyle Quick traveled to the hearing from Circle in Eastern Montana, where the Keystone XL pipeline is proposed, in order to testify. The line, being developed by TransCanada, would ship oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast, and Quick said HB198 could carry ramifications for that project as well.

“They’re cheapskates and a foreign company trying to beat these farmers and ranchers,” said Quick, who said he was representing 10 angry cattle ranchers — eight Republicans and two Democrats — who oppose HB198.

The Republicans are mad because “we are a party of property rights,” he said. The Democrats are mad because Gov. Brian Schweitzer, also a Democrat, supports the pipeline.

Some residents with land along MATL testified Thursday that they have been treated poorly by Tonbridge in negotiations. They urged lawmakers to vote against HB198.

Residents identifying themselves as tea party representatives, noting the state’s strong property rights protections, also spoke against the legislation. Union representatives spoke in favor of HB198, citing the jobs the projects would create.

Sen. Jim Peterson, R-Buffalo, said supporters of both natural resource development and private property rights are “caught in a vice” as a result of the controversy.

Jim Peterson spoke in favor of the bill, saying shipping electricity out of state is in the public interest, and comparing it to farmers exporting wheat.

“It might not be in Montana, but it is public use just like food is public use,” he said.

Katrina Martin, who lives east of Dutton near the MATL line route, took exception to Jim Peterson’s export comparison during her testimony.

“Yes, I export my wheat,” Martin said. “But I do not get to condemn my neighbor’s property to do it.”

FROM DEKALB ILLINOIS:

CLICK HERE FOR SOURCE: Life with Dekalb Turbines: the diary of a family in a wind project.

FROM AUSTRALIA:

DOUBT OVER GREEN ENERGY'S CLEAN BILL OF HEALTH

 SOURCE The Australian, www.theaustralian.com.au

 March 4,  2011

Graham Lloyd, Environment editor,

Wind turbines are closing in on four generations of the Quinn family who still live at Mt Bryan in South Australia’s picturesque and productive Mt Lofty Ranges.

Rosemary Quinn, 74, says she spends her nights locked inside the 1900s stone house she has occupied for 55 years. She shuts the windows and sets the ceiling fan on high to cover the noise of the wind turbines 2km away.

Quinn’s son Bill and his wife Jenny are about to gamble their 200ha property in a Federal Court challenge to the expansion plans of wind farm developer AGL.

Bill Quinn’s daughter Deb, 32, who works for businesses that profit from the wind farm developments, is worried about the future of her daughter, Jacqueline, and what long-term exposure to nearby wind turbines may mean.

The Quinns are not alone.

They are part of an increasingly vocal army of people in rural settlements who believe they have become collateral damage in Australia’s rush to embrace wind as an alternative energy to combat climate change.

Stories such as the Quinns’, and much, much worse, are scattered through the more than 1000 submissions to a Senate inquiry into the effect of wind farm developments on rural communities.

The inquiry by the Senate community affairs committee has certainly received many submissions of support for wind-farm developments to meet the federal government’s 20 per cent renewable energy target by 2020. Local community and sporting groups have praised the donations they have received.

But alongside the positive feedback are stories of gag orders, split communities, strongarm tactics and details of awful physical symptoms that people feel sure are the result of living in the auditory and sun-flicker shadow of wind turbine developments that are sweeping the rural landscape.

Family First senator Steve Fielding, who pushed for the Senate inquiry, says: “This is not a question about the viability of renewable technologies. It is to have a look at any adverse health effects for people living in close proximity.”

He says the Senate committee has approached the inquiry with an open mind, but “certainly there are people whose health has deteriorated to the stage that they have had to move out at a complete loss to themselves”.

Public hearings will be held in Canberra on March 25, Ballarat on March 28, Melbourne on March 29 and Perth on March 31.

Glenn Brew of Evansford in Victoria, near the controversial Waubra wind farm, has told the committee he was beginning to think he had a brain tumour until he discovered that other farmers in the area were experiencing headaches similar to his when they were close to the turbines.

Steven Hilary, 50, also of Waubra, has told the committee he is convinced the turbines pose a serious health risk.

“On April 22nd at 4am I suffered a heart attack and to date I have been continually suffering blood pressure issues, heart palpitations, headaches, dizziness, nausea, unbearable tinnitus and disrupted sleep patterns that led to numerous ambulance trips to hospital,” he wrote.

The Senate inquiry clearly has opened a can of worms: affected rural residents believe city dwellers with a penchant for green power have been happy to ignore the situation. Despite what opponents may say, this is not a community backlash that can be dismissed as being rooted in climate change denial or greed.

When Rosemary Quinn first heard wind turbines were coming to her area she visited the already established wind farm developments at Yorke Peninsula and Cape Jervis to have a look.

“I thought they were a terrific invention and we really needed to get all this green power,” she says.

“People now just say I have got a set against them and if they passed us a lot of money it would be all right, but I had a sermon in church this morning that money doesn’t matter. I don’t want their money, I just want some peace and quiet in the last months of my life.”

Sarah Laurie, a South Australian GP who has become a rallying point for people concerned about health effects from living near wind turbines, also cannot be written off as a stalking horse for big coal or the nuclear industry, as her detractors would suggest.

Laurie has worked among South Australia’s Aboriginal communities on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara lands, where her husband still works as a travelling dentist.

She is a progressive with rooftop solar panels on her Crystal Brook property, and has alienated some friends by asking inconvenient questions about the green revolution. “I still am supportive of wind turbines in the right place,” Laurie says.

“I believe it is a siting issue primarily and we need to get the information in order to site the turbines safely.

“We have a window of opportunity now to get this right. If we don’t I am concerned there is an unfolding public disaster.

“This is not a NIMBY [not in my back yard] issue,” Laurie says. “I don’t think they should be in anybody’s back yard.”

All Laurie is requesting is that rigorous tests, independent of the industry or concerned residents, be carried out. Laurie knows her research, which catalogues a series of health effects among those living near wind turbines, will always be considered tainted by the fact there is a proposal for a wind farm near her own property.

But her findings mirror the results of other research that has also struggled for official recognition from the wind industry and government agencies.

The international research can be traced to British doctor Amanda Harry, who was introduced to a couple living near a wind farm in Cornwall in 2003.

Harry’s research was followed up by South Gippsland GP, David Issa, who surveyed residents living 1.5km to 2km of the Toora Wind Farm in Victoria.

Meanwhile, in Canada, pharmacist Carmen Krough, a senior pharmacist with Health Canada, joined with Bob McMurtry, an ex-dean of a medical school in Ontario, to form a Society for Wind Vigilance in 2009 after experiencing symptoms while staying near a wind turbine development.

As the Ontario Society for Wind Vigilance was being formed, Yale University graduate Nina Pierpont published her survey results, which described a pattern of symptoms that developed or were exacerbated by the turbines, and which disappeared when the subjects left their homes, only to return again when they returned.

She coined the term “wind turbine syndrome” to describe the symptoms that included sleep disturbance, high blood pressure, headaches, tinnitus, dizziness, nausea, rapid heart rate and panic attacks. Pierpont recommended more research be undertaken into the effect of infrasound, or very low-frequency sound waves.

The wind industry has rejected all the international research and the need for further research into the effect of infrasound. But it has been prepared to buy out some affected property owners with non-disclosure clauses that prevent the sellers from talking about their experience with turbines.

Laurie says the widespread use of confidentiality clauses has made it difficult for land holders who have agreed to host turbines, or those who have been bought out, to provide first-hand accounts of any health effects to researchers.

The Clean Energy Council, the peak body representing Australia’s renewable energy and energy efficiency industries, told the Senate inquiry that wind energy was an integral part of the renewable energy mix.

It said a survey commissioned by the NSW government in mid-2010 found 80 per cent of residents were supportive of wind farms being built in their local region and more than 60 per cent supported them at 1km to 2km from their residence.

The council cited a National Health and Medical Research Council statement that “there is currently no published scientific evidence to positively link wind turbines with adverse health effects”. There is also a World Health Organisation statement: “There is no reliable evidence that sounds below the hearing threshold produce physiological or psychological effect.”

The council said the American and Canadian Wind Energy Associations had established a scientific advisory panel comprising medical doctors, audiologists and acoustic professionals from the US, Canada, Denmark and Britain, which found labels such as “wind turbine syndrome” were not a recognised medical diagnosis but reflective of symptoms associated with annoyance.

The Clean Energy Council’s points are echoed by the main wind turbine companies in their submissions to the Senate inquiry.

All lean heavily on the statement by the NHMRC. But the NHMRC report does not give wind turbines the clean bill of health that the industry claims. In correspondence to Peter Mitchell from Victoria, who set up the Waubra Foundation with Laurie, the NHMRC said it acknowledged there were opposing viewpoints regarding wind turbines and their potential effects on human health.

“It is important to note that these views are presented by a variety of groups or people, including those with vested interests,” the NHMRC said. “It is important to note that the review, its conclusions and recommendations are based on published scientific evidence at the time of writing and may be updated in future to take into account new evidence as it emerges.”

FROM ONTARIO

WIND POWER FOES LOSE LEGAL BATTLE

SOURCE: The Globe and Mail

March 4, 2011

By Richard Blackwell

Anti-wind power activists in Ontario have suffered a major legal setback, as a panel of judges ruled the province has the right to determine how closely turbines may be placed to homes.

In a decision released Thursday, three judges of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice said the provincial government’s regulations that spell out the minimum distance – usually 550 metres – are legitimate.

Lawyers for Ian Hanna, a resident of Prince Edward County, 200 kilometres east of Toronto, had argued at a hearing in January that regulations in Ontario’s Green Energy Act that govern how far turbines must be from dwellings are illegal. If the court had agreed, new wind development in the province could have come to a standstill.

The ruling was a relief for the wind power industry. If it had gone the other way, “it would have created a tremendous amount of uncertainty, ” said Robert Hornung, president of the Canadian Wind Energy Association.

He said the turbine setbacks were determined through an extensive consultation process, and they are among the most stringent in North America. The association’s position is that there is no direct link between wind turbines and human health.

Mr. Hanna's argument was based on the premise that Ontario did not take proper account of the possible negative impact to human health when it established the minimum turbine setback.

Essentially, he argued, there is no medical evidence that the setback is safe, and that by publishing regulations without sufficient proof, the province breached the “precautionary principle” in its own environmental bill of rights. That principle says the government has to show an activity is safe before it is approved.

But the judges disagreed, saying that “the health concerns for persons living in proximity to wind turbines cannot be denigrated, but they do not trump all other considerations.”

Ontario’s Environment Ministry correctly followed the process outlined in the environmental bill of rights, and conducted sufficient consultation before coming up with its regulations, the ruling said.

The judges also noted that anyone in the province can challenge specific proposed wind projects in front of an environmental review tribunal, and if they can prove that the 550-metre setback is not sufficient, the tribunal can stop the project or increase the setback.

Mr. Hanna said Thursday that he will consider an appeal of the ruling and will continue to fight on behalf of those who think more research must be done into the health effects of wind turbines. “I’ve met too many people who are really suffering from living too close to turbines,” he said. “I’ve seen what it can do to them … I couldn’t walk away.”

Mr. Hanna’s lawyer, Eric Gillespie, said there are some positive aspects to the court ruling. The decision made it clear that Ontario’s environmental bill of rights must be taken into account when regulations are set, he said, and it opens the door to other legal challenges to government decisions related to wind energy. “Given the amount of public interest and concern around this issue, it would be very surprising if this was the last legal challenge,” he said.

Ontario’s Environment Minister John Wilkinson said the province’s setback rules are based on 40 years of peer-reviewed science. But he said the ministry “is always open to new research.”

FROM OHIO & ILLINOIS

WIND FARM FALLS FLAT

SOURCE: The Daily Standard, www.dailystandard.com

March 2, 2011

By Shelley Grieshop,

Mel Haas of DeKalb County, Ill., said a nearly identical situation occurred in his agricultural area nearly eight years ago – and the turbines were still built.

“They came here in 2002-2003 and told us if the community didn’t want this, they would move on,” and they did, Haas said in a phone interview this morning.

However, NextEra officials returned and in January 2010 began operating a wind farm with 126 turbines – many of which surround his rural home in Shabbona.

Haas said he has a message for the people in Mercer County: “Watch your back. Stay vigilant on this issue.”

ST. HENRY – NextEra Energy Resources announced Tuesday it is pulling the plug on a locally-proposed wind farm project out of respect for the area’s rich religious history.

Representatives of the Florida-based wind development company told The Daily Standard they changed their minds about constructing 40 to 70 wind turbines in the region after learning how much residents value the southern Mercer County-based “Land of the Cross Tipped Churches.”

“The last couple months we’ve had discussions with community leaders and area clergymen, and we’ve come to understand and appreciate the whole Cross Tipped Church region,” NextEra spokesman Steve Stengel said.

“We’ve listened to the community and heard what they had to say … and we agree with them.”

The Land of the Cross Tipped Churches highlights the roots of Catholicism in the area and in 1979 was added to the National Register of Historic Places. The tourist attraction includes 65 churches, former convents, schools and rectories, as well as cemeteries and other sites across Mercer, Auglaize, Darke and Shelby counties.

An informational open house scheduled by NextEra for Thursday in St. Henry has been canceled. Stengel said the event was nixed because of the flooding problems residents are experiencing.

“We don’t want to seem insensitive to the communities,” he said.

Stengel said NextEra “still likes Mercer County” as a wind farm site and is now focusing its attention in the north and northwest sector. Wind test towers will be erected in that area “when appropriate sites are selected,” he said.

The four test towers NextEra has in southern Mercer County will stay in place and continue to collect valuable data, Stengel said. NextEra director Scott Scovill said all leases penned between the company and area landowners are binding and will be honored.

News about NextEra’s decision to abandon the project brought joy and relief to those who had been opposing the development in the St. Henry, Maria Stein, Fort Recovery and Minster area.

“If they’re going to go ahead and make that move, we have to give credit where credit is due,” said Jim Niekamp of St. Henry, a spokesman for Citizens Against Turbines (CAT). “We have to give them credit for listening. It’s what we all hoped for.”

Niekamp said many people feared the proposed giant wind turbines would dwarf the church steeples that identify the region’s heritage. He feels the issue has caused many people to realize the value of “what lies in our own backyard.”

The Rev. Tom Hemm, pastor of the St. Henry cluster of Catholic churches, met with Next-Era officials several times in recent weeks as a representative of the Precious Blood Society. NextEra had unsuccessfully sought to lease land from St. Charles Center in Carthagena – a facility owned by the Precious Blood, he said.

“Our role as the Precious Blood community was to be neutral,” Hemm said, adding the organization supports alternative energy ideas. “We listened and heard excellent reasons from both sides.”
Hemm said his hope all along was that community members embraced the moral values embedded in their heritage.

“I wanted to be sure the values represented by those crosses – mutual respect and a willingness to listen – were being lived by the community,” he said.

NextEra representatives said they haven’t given up hope on establishing their own roots here.

“We wouldn’t be in Mercer County if we didn’t think there was an opportunity here,” Stengel said.

Although happy about the move, Niekamp is skeptical. Mel Haas of DeKalb County, Ill., said a nearly identical situation occurred in his agricultural area nearly eight years ago – and the turbines were still built.
“They came here in 2002-2003 and told us if the community didn’t want this, they would move on,” and they did, Haas said in a phone interview this morning.

However, NextEra officials returned and in January 2010 began operating a wind farm with 126 turbines – many of which surround his rural home in Shabbona.

Haas said he has a message for the people in Mercer County: “Watch your back. Stay vigilant on this issue.”

Stengel confirmed Haas’ version of the company’s actions, but said the company “re-engaged” and ultimately built the wind farm in a different location within the county after market conditions improved.

Wind turbines tower above a Wisconsin farm

EXPERT WARNS 'PROVINCE OUGHT NOT TO PROCEED' WITH INDUSTRIAL WIND TURBINES

SOURCE: The Windsor Star, www.windsorstar.com

February 17, 2011

By Gary Rennie,

CHATHAM-KENT, Ont. — In a case that’s put Ontario’s Green Energy Act on trial drawing expert witnesses from around the world, a prominent Canadian physician testified Wednesday that construction of new wind turbines should be put on hold until appropriate medical studies are done to ensure the safety of nearby residents.

“The province ought not to proceed with the development of industrial wind turbines any further,” said Dr. Robert McMurtry, a past dean of the medical school at the University of Western Ontario and a former assistant deputy minister of health for the federal government.

“There is a lot of suffering,” McMurtry said. “We need to understand why.”

McMurtry was a witness for Chatham-Kent residents trying to overturn ministry of environment approval for Suncor’s proposed Kent Breeze wind farm.

Using audio and video teleconferencing, expert witnesses from England, New Zealand and the U.S. have already weighed in on the complex science of industrial noise and how humans perceive and react to it.

Suncor and environment ministry lawyers have a long list of experts of their own to call in the weeks ahead. Final arguments to the two-member Ontario Environmental Review Tribunal panel aren’t expected to be made until April.

Considered the key witness for sceptics of the safety of turbines as currently regulated in Ontario, McMurtry spoke of his experiences talking to more than 40 people who have lived close to the 120-metre high towers and whirling blades. They complain of prolonged sleep deprivation, stress, headaches, extreme fatigue, and high blood pressure, he said.

Leaving their homes to stay with relatives or in motels provides relief from the symptoms, McMurtry said. “The only cure is to move.”

McMurtry was critical of both Ontario’s noise standard for wind turbines and the 550 metre setback from turbine locations to homes in the regulations to the 2009 Green Energy Act. “I do not have confidence in those guidelines.”

The setback is a key issue. If setbacks of 1,500 metres or more – which some experts call for – had been established, development of wind turbines in heavily populated Essex County and many other southern Ontario communities would have been impossible.

It’s not just a question of how loud wind turbines may be, it’s the repetitive, pulsating nature of the “whoosh, whoosh” sound that appears to annoy some people, McMurtry said.

An analogy used by other experts in the hearing is the drip of a leaky faucet, which while not loud, can be annoyingly disruptive to sleep.

Low frequency noise and inaudible, infrasound may also contribute to the distress of those living close to turbines, said McMurtry. He conceded a lack of research proving a definitive cause and effect, but at the same time, said no research proving the safety of turbines at typical setbacks exists either.

“More likely than not, people living near industrial wind turbines are suffering adverse health affects,” McMurtry said. Governments should act in precautionary way to protect the health of residents until peer-reviewed research provides greater certainty about the kinds of regulations needed for wind development, he said.

McMurtry got interested in wind turbines after buying a cottage in Prince Edward County in 2007 with enough land to potentially put up one of his own. But after researching the issue further, he became alarmed at the weak scientific basis for claims of the safety of wind turbines.

He tried unsuccessfully to raise his concerns with several Liberal cabinet ministers, getting no response.

Prince Edward County has also been a popular choice of location for several large wind projects although none have yet been built. McMurtry has been prominent in a local citizens’ group in his community questioning wind turbine development.

A past special advisor to a Royal Commission on the Future of Health Care, he has immersed himself in recent years on the scientific research around the world on the health issues raised by wind turbines.



CLICK HERE IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY CONTACTED YOUR LEGISLATORS TO ASK THEM TO SUPPORT GOVERNOR WALKER'S WIND SITING BILL

CLICK on the image below to see how the PSC came up the number of hours of wind turbine shadow flicker a household must endure before they can complain to the wind company

Click on the image below to hear a PSC Wind Siting Council member suggest the setback around a wind turbine be called a 'courtesy setback' rather than a 'safety setback' because she does not believe safety is an issue

Click on the image below to hear why the Wind Siting Council would allow local government to reduce the setbacks and make them less than the PSC's saftey guidelines

Click on the image below to hear why wind developers don't want to tell people in a community that they are planning a project in their community

CLICK here to watch the PSC's Wind Siting Council unable to answer the most basic of questions. How much louder is the 25 decibel increase they have recommended?

EXTRA CREDIT READING:

“I saw those flames go out the door with no smoke and I said: ‘The barn’s on fire!’ And I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.”

ABOVE: A barn at the Nelson farm in Lowell burned down in August. State police couldn't determine a cause. Don Nelson thinks the barn was torched because of his opposition to the Lowell wind project.

By John Dillon

Vermont Public Radio News, www.vpr.net

February 1, 2011

(Host) This week, the Public Service Board opens hearings on Vermont’s largest wind development – a proposal for 21 wind turbines that would stand 440 feet tall on a ridgeline in Lowell.

Developers hoped to avoid some of the controversy that other projects have faced by asking for, and winning, Lowell voters’ support last Town Meeting Day. But it hasn’t been that easy.

In the first part of our series on wind’s future in Vermont, VPR’s John Dillon explains how passionate, and personal, the debate still is in Lowell.

(Dillon) Don Nelson is a retired dairy farmer. He’s a slight, wiry guy with white hair and a bad back from years milking cows.

The farm where Nelson and his wife, Shirley, live is far up a dirt road, snug up against the Lowell Mountains. They’ve fought wind turbine development here for almost ten years. The first company eventually called it quits.

But the project was revived by Green Mountain Power. The Nelsons continued to fight and they wonder whether they’ve been targeted as a result. Don Nelson remembers Friday the 13th of August last year.

(Nelson) “I saw those flames go out the door with no smoke and I said: ‘The barn’s on fire!’ And I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.”

(Dillon) Nelson had slept past his normal dawn rising. Soon after he poured coffee, he saw his red barn erupt in flames.

(Nelson) “It didn’t go bang. It went ‘woooom!’ And then ‘wooom!’ like that. And the first one, it forced the flames right through the cracks in the roofing.”

(Dillon) Balls of flame leveled the barn within 30 minutes. State police couldn’t determine a cause. Nelson thinks his barn was torched. And he thinks his opposition to the wind project might have been why.

(Nelson) “All I know is that it’s a $160 million project and the town of Lowell is going to get $400,000-$500,000 a year. Money changes people. I don’t know. How do I know? All I know is: I know the barn was set, and I know that we didn’t set it.”

(Dillon) The embers of the barn fire cooled last August. But tensions in Lowell and other communities remain high over wind development and the future of Vermont’s ridgelines.

On one side are people like the Nelsons. They argue the projects will hurt tourism and damage fragile mountain habitat.

But many others see economic and environmental value. Alden Warner is a selectman in Lowell. He says Vermont has to take responsibility for generating some of its own electricity.

(Warner) “Our earth’s supply of energy sources is going to be depleted. The millions of gallons that are being burned every day – we’ve got to do something to start getting prepared for our energy.”

(Dillon) Warner is also the Lowell fire chief. He thinks the Nelson fire probably was intentionally set, but who did it and why remains a mystery.

(Warner) “I would really be disappointed if I found out that if somebody that was pro wind turbines would actually take something to the degree of actually destroying somebody’s property just to get even.”

(Dillon) Warner says deep divisions remain in town. He’s a big booster of the project – but one of his brothers is involved in the opposition group.

Still, GMP won Lowell’s support on Town Meeting Day. The town will be rewarded with annual payments that could cut property taxes by a third or more.

Opponents say the impacts go far beyond Lowell.

Steve Wright is a former state Fish and Wildlife Commissioner and member of the Conservation Commission in Craftsbury. Many areas in Craftsbury overlook the Lowell range. Wright said he thought ridgeline wind generation was benign until he started reading the 1,300 page application GMP filed with the Public Service Board.

(Wright) “I read one segment in there that flipped me over completely and that was the segment on the amount of road building and alteration of the 450 million year old Cretaceous era ridgeline which currently basically has no roads there. That’s what turned me around.”

(Dillon) Trees would have to be cleared for four miles of new road. State biologists warn about damage to critical bear habitat. Wright says the mountain will have to be blasted and leveled as much as 40 feet in places. And he believes the beauty of the area will be damaged.

(Wright) “People come to many towns in Vermont, I believe, for the way these towns look. And we get some push back often on the view not meaning anything. I contest that: why have we worked for years to create a body of legislation that essentially protects the view?”

(Dillon) Wright refers to Act 250, the billboard law, and other efforts to preserve the state’s iconic character. But another land ethic runs fiercely through Vermont – and the Northeast Kingdom in particular – protection of property rights.

(Pion) “Everybody wants to have a say in everybody else’s land. And I have a problem with that.”

(Dillon) Richard Pion is chairman of the Lowell selectboard. He says landowners have the right to do what they want with their property. A neighbor steers his tractor away from Pion’s front yard, where Pion points out a few of the turbines will be visible. But he’s not worried about the view.

(Pion) “Once these are built for six months people won’t pay any attention to them. Won’t be any worse that looking at the ski resort.”

(Dillon) Back in Don and Shirley Nelson’s living room, a clock chimes the hour as they reflect on the personal toll of their opposition. Shirley Nelson says the barn fire put many on edge. Don Nelson worries about the future.

(Nelson) Some people couldn’t stand to live here. Some people think this is heaven, but it won’t be when this is done. It’s going to change the character of the Northeast Kingdom forever.

(Dillon) The Nelsons and others fighting the project will be at the Public Service Board this week. But they’re not hopeful. They point out that the state agency that represents electric consumers recently reversed itself and endorsed the Lowell wind project.

For VPR News, I’m John Dillon.

(Host) Tomorrow, we take a look at the science behind wind energy, and how much wind development is needed to effectively reduce greenhouse gas pollution.

OPINIONS DIFFER ON WIND POWER'S POLLUTION REDUCTION

 Source: Vermont Public Radio News, www.vpr.net 

February2,  2011

John Dillon

(Host) Supporters and opponents of commercial-scale wind energy projects on Vermont’s ridgelines use a lot of statistics and facts to argue their very different sides of the debate.

So it’s difficult to sort out how much carbon pollution might be cut if there were big wind turbines in the mountains. Or whether the wind generators could replace bigger electric plants, such as Vermont Yankee.

As part of a series on the future of wind energy in Vermont, VPR’s John Dillon explains the complexities.

(Dillon) Leading environmental groups say Vermont has a “moral obligation” to combat climate change. And they say developing wind projects on the state’s ridgelines is the way to make progress.

Brian Shupe of the Vermont Natural Resources Council says all that’s needed is some planning.

(Shupe) “The lack of a coherent energy plan in the state has not allowed Vermont to adequately prepare for the closing of Vermont Yankee, or to address climate change in a meaningful way.”

(Dillon) Those are the twin goals of many Vermont environmentalists: Shut down Yankee and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

But can industrial-scale wind do the job? Can it replace Yankee? To answer that, we need to step back for a moment for a lesson on how the electricity grid works.

Yankee is what’s known as a “baseload” plant. That means – barring an unexpected shutdown – it cranks 620 megawatts into the New England grid all day, every day, all year.

But the wind doesn’t blow every day, so wind power can’t be baseload. It’s known as intermittent.

ISO New England, which oversees the regional energy market, says more wind will not replace nuclear reactors like Yankee, or the big greenhouse gas polluters – coal-fired plants.

(Luce) “I’m Ben Luce. I’m a professor at Lyndon State College.”

(Dillon) Now, let’s pause for a moment for a lesson in a science lab.

Professor Luce has sandy hair and round glasses. He speaks in the measured, analytical tones of a physics professor, which is what he is. In his lab, Luce tinkers with a shiny chrome device. It’s a heat pump, kind of a reverse refrigerator.

(Luce) “Well, we try to teach about the principals of clean energy technology so people really understand them. And this geothermal heat pump unit is one we’re evaluating.”

(Dillon) Because he advocates for renewable energy, Luce has high hopes for devices like this. It can convert the cold temperatures from the ground into heat that can be used to warm buildings. But despite his environmentalist credentials, Luce is skeptical about wind in Vermont. He encouraged it in New Mexico when he worked there. But he says there’s just not enough wind potential here to make much of a difference in global climate change.

(Luce) “On the scale of U.S. energy usage, it’s quite small. If you were to develop all the so-called developable wind resources in the eastern United States they would only be able to reduce U.S. CO2 emissions by about 1 percent.”

(Dillon) Notice he said if you were to develop all the wind resources. That means turbines on many, many ridgelines and extensive offshore wind projects. Even if you did all that, says Luce, you wouldn’t make much of a dent in climate change.

(Luce) “It really is a minor resource. At the same time developing it in my opinion would have an incredibly adverse effect on the ecology and the economy and the character of the state.”

(Dillon) Yet Green Mountain Power says the 21 turbines the company hopes to build on Lowell Mountain will cut greenhouse gases. Robert Dostis is a company vice president.

(Dostis) “Every kilowatt of electricity that’s produced from Lowell is power we don’t have to buy from some other resource. And if that other resource is a fossil fuel, then that’s carbon we’re not putting into the atmosphere.”

(Dillon) But how much less on carbon? GMP says it’s difficult to say because different fuels create different emissions.

(Dostis) “The bottom line is, any development of this size obviously is going to have impacts, and it’s about the trade-offs.”

(Dillon) Even if environmental concerns weren’t part of the wind equation, there’s another piece of the energy system that critics say has to be considered.

It’s the question of “spinning reserve.” Here’s what that is: A spare power source, ready to kick in whenever it’s needed. Think of spinning reserve like this. When you’re sitting in your car waiting at a stop light, you want to be able to go as soon as the light turns green. It’ll take longer to get rolling if you have to restart the engine after every stop.

The electricity system is much more vast than a single car, though. So it also needs another reserve, one that could be powered up within 10 minutes.

New England needs 1,200 megawatts of both kinds of reserve electricity on hand. It usually comes from baseload hydro, nuclear or fossil fuel. Experts say if wind were a more significant part of the mix, there would be an even greater need for reserve because wind is intermittent.

Despite wind’s limitations, environmental groups argue that Vermont has to do something to move away from nuclear and fossil fuels. James Moore of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group says five or six wind projects would make a significant impact.

(Moore) “We’re talking about 8 percent of the state’s annual electricity demand already being met by local resources just in the next couple of years.”

(Dillon) But Physics professor Ben Luce has a different idea: solar. He says it’s getting cheaper and produces electricity when it’s most needed.

Luce says he wants the debate to be driven by science not hope.

(Luce) “So when people say we have to do something, my response to that is to say we really need to do something serious, not something that is just effectively symbolic.”

(Dillon) Most of Vermont’s greenhouse gases come from vehicles and heating fuels. Luce says that’s where the state could focus.

For VPR News, I’m John Dillon in Montpelier.

(Host) Tomorrow our series concludes with a look at how wind projects are financed.