Better Plan, Wisconsin

NOTE FROM THE BPWI RESEARCH NERD: Ted Weissman is a wind developer for NextEra (formerly Florida Power & Light) who has been inquiring about putting up a met tower in the Town of Spring Valley (Rock County).

Better Plan has been told he is the same developer that signed up a number of landowners for the Glacier Hills project currently under construction in Columbia County and now owned by WeEnergies.

For those in the Spring Valley community who are interested in what kinds of terms might be in a wind lease from Ted Weissman on behalf of NextEra, a preview may be had by looking over the leases Weissman reportedly used to sign up Columbia county landowners. Download a copy of the wind lease by clicking here, or visit the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin, and search docket #6630-CE-302

In upcoming days Better Plan will be taking a closer look at the wind lease that at least a few landowners in Columbia county now openly regret signing, why they regret signing it and where things stand with the project today.

Senate Bill 98, Changing Setback Limits and other Regulations Applicable to Wind Energy Systems. 

This bill imposes additional requirements on the PSC's rules governing local regulation of wind turbines.

The bill requires the restrictions under the rules to provide reasonable protection from any health effects associated with wind energy systems, including health effects from noise and shadow flicker.

The bill eliminates the requirement for the PSC to promulgate rules regarding setback requirements, and requires instead that the owners of certain wind energy systems comply with distance requirements specified in the bill.

The bill's requirements apply to the owner of a "large wind energy system," which the bill defines as a wind energy system that has a total installed nameplate capacity of more than 300 kilowatts and that consists of individual wind turbines that have an installed nameplate capacity of more than 100 kilowatts. 

Under the bill, the owner of a large wind energy system must design and construct the system so that the straight line distance from the vertical center line of any wind turbine tower of the system to the nearest point on the property line of the property on which the wind turbine tower is located is at least one-half mile. 

The bill allows a lesser distance if there is a written agreement between the owner of the large wind energy system and the owners of all property within one-half mile of the property on which the system is located.

The bill also requires that the straight line distance from the vertical center line of any wind turbine tower of the system to the nearest point on the permanent foundation of any building must be at least 1.1 times the maximum blade tip height of the wind turbine tower, unless the owners of the system and the building agree in writing to a lesser distance. 

In addition, the bill requires that the straight line distance from the vertical center line of any wind turbine tower of the system to the nearest point on any public road right-of-way or overhead communication or electric transmission or distribution line must be at least 1.1 times the maximum blade tip height of the wind turbine tower.  By Sen. Lasee (R-De Pere) Comment on this bill. 

FROM WASHINGTON DC

HOUSE REPUBLICANS PRESS FOR FASTER ACTION ON RENEWABLE ENERGY

READ THE ENTIRE STORY AT THE SOURCE: Bloomberg, www.bloomberg.com

June 1, 2011

By Jim Snyder,

Susan Reilly, chief executive officer of Renewable Energy Systems Americas Inc., of Broomfield, Colorado, said Interior Department protection from wind turbines for golden eagles will “make financing projects more difficult.”

U.S. House Republicans, who have sought to expedite offshore oil- and gas-drilling permits, pressed the Obama administration to act faster on renewable energy projects.

Federal hurdles are slowing growth of solar and wind companies, industry executives said today at a House Natural Resources Committee hearing in Washington. The witnesses also advocated tax incentives and production mandates criticized by Republicans, who control the House.

“Bureaucratic delays, unnecessary lawsuits and burdensome environmental regulations” are hampering expansion of renewable energy, as they have for oil and gas producers, said Committee Chairman Doc Hastings, a Republican from Washington state.

Hastings’s panel has already passed legislation designed to expand oil and gas production offshore, including an accelerated approval process for drilling permits. The bills passed the House before being blocked in the Senate, where Democrats hold a majority.

Susan Reilly, chief executive officer of Renewable Energy Systems Americas Inc., of Broomfield, Colorado, said Interior Department protection from wind turbines for golden eagles will “make financing projects more difficult.”

The Obama administration proposed guidelines in February to help wind-energy developers identify sites that pose the least risks to birds and wildlife.

Collisions with wind turbines are a “major source of mortality” for golden eagles in regions of the U.S. West, according to a department fact sheet.
Developing Public Lands

Hastings asked witnesses if the Interior Department had an efficient and effective process for reviewing permits for developing public lands.

While most responded no, executives also praised the Obama administration for improving the procedures and focusing more attention on renewable energy.

They commended policies like a Treasury Department grant program for renewable developers set to expire later this year and an Obama plan to generate 80 percent of U.S. electricity from low-polluting sources by 2035.

The Interior Department is “picking up the pace” on offshore wind, said Jim Lanard, president of the Offshore Wind Development Coalition.

Reilly said clean-energy mandates and a predictable tax policy would promote investment.

From Ontario

HOME VALUES VS. WIND TURBINES

READ ENTIRE STORY AT THE SOURCE: www.bayshorebroadcasting.ca

June 1, 2011

by Travis Pedwell

McMurray tells Bayshore Broadcasting News it’s hard to put a value on house depreciation but says it can bring down a home’s value by 25 to 40 per cent.

He says the depreciation stays at 25 to 40 per cent as far as two miles away from the house.

McMurray adds if a home is in an area where people are looking for recreational or desirable residential property the house may not have any market value.

Wind Turbines are having a serious effect on house values in Grey County and would do the same in Huron County.

This from Grey County realtor Mike McMurray at the Community Forum on Wind Development in Goderich held on Monday.

McMurray tells Bayshore Broadcasting News it’s hard to put a value on house depreciation but says it can bring down a home’s value by 25 to 40 per cent.

He says the depreciation stays at 25 to 40 per cent as far as two miles away from the house.

McMurray adds if a home is in an area where people are looking for recreational or desirable residential property the house may not have any market value.

McMurray notes he sympathizes with those who have built homes and have had turbines placed in their backyards.

He tells us most people he deals with wish they had never got involved with turbines.

McMurray tells us there have been several cases when someone from Toronto wants to relocate and must look elsewhere because of potential wind development.

He says his experience shows wind development pits neighbour against neighbour.

McMurray notes among other things – the biggest concern he hears from potential buyers are the health effects.

He says nobody wants to look out at the turbines all day and have flashing lights come through the windows at night.

McMurray adds many potential buyers will stay away from areas of wind development.

He says he has encountered residents who don’t mind turbines but adds only farmers on marginal properties see them as a way of survival.

From Ontario

LIKE LIVING IN A MICROWAVE OVEN

READ THE WHOLE STORY AT THE SOURCE: Orangeville Citizen, www.citizen.on.ca

June 2, 2011

By WES KELLER

If the independent findings and conclusions of an electrical engineer are correct, Theresa Kidd and her family were living “inside a microwave oven environment” near the TransAlta transformer substation in Amaranth until forced out by ill health.

Because they had lived on their horse farm across from the Hydro One grid near 15 Sideroad and the 10th Line of Amaranth for more than a half dozen years with no adverse health effects prior to the installation of transformers but have experienced severe ill health since then, the Kidds blame the substation – and the electrical study would appear to confirm that as the cause.

However, the Ministry of Recreational Environment (MoE) hasn’t indicated an interest in anything other than noise-level compliance at the site, and Theresa says TransAlta has never www. sent its own electrical engineers to investigate the source of her family’s complaints.

Her electrical engineer is David Copping of Ripley, who says some industry and MoE officials have agreed with his findings – but only “off the record.”

Mr. Copping, who lives in the area of the Suncor wind farm, said in a telephone interview that the proximity of the turbines to his home has nothing to do with his opposition to the transmission of wind power.

In fact, the Ryerson-trained electrician at first poohpoohed the idea that electric contamination from wind farms could affect human health. He did, however, have an interest in examining the effects on dairy herds.

Someone talked him into examining a home near Ripley where the occupants had become ill. Since then, he says, he has examined more

200 homes of which there are now five vacant at Ripley, the two at the local substation, and one more near Kincardine, where Enbridge has a wind farm.

Mr. Copping’s reports are technical, and appear to be at least partially based on analyses of power quality and frequency, using specialized equipment.

His “microwave” conclusion is from a measurement of a 10 kiloHertz (Kz) frequency of electricity on a wire connected between the kitchen sink and an EKG patch on the floor of the Kidd home when the main power line to the house had been shut off.

That frequency is otherwise expressed as 10,000 cycles per second, but the frequency of “clean” electrical transmission would be 60 cycles per second, he says.

Where is the energy coming from when the power line to the house has been shut off? Mr. Colling said it could be “coming through the walls.”

“You have 10 kHz micro surges being introduced into your home, therefore it compares to living inside microwave oven environment. I hope this helps in understanding what has happened to your health,” he says in concluding note to the Kidds.

Ms. Kidd said she met TransAlta representative Jason Edworthy at Amaranth Council in January 2010 when the council urged him to speak with the affected residents (Kidds and Whitworths).

Then, in March, she described symptoms of headaches, vomiting and sleep deprivation among other things to Mr. Edworthy, as happening since February 2009 – forcing the family to vacate in April of that year.

“For the record, this was the second time we spoke with TransAlta – and the last,” she said.

“TransAlta has done absolutely nothing to investigate our concerns; they are fully aware of the health issues we have incurred due to their substation.”

She notes that acoustical barriers and landscaping around the substation were completed before TransAlta purchased Canadian Hydro in a hostile takeover, and those were done “to bring the noise levels into compliance.”

“Neither the Kidd nor Whitworth family health has been made a priority by TransAlta. This company’s response in addressing our concerns due to their electrical transformer substation was to give us three options: sell and move; stay and adapt; or take action against the company.

“These options were given to us in March 2010,” she said.

In addition to their physical health problems, the Kidds generally have lost their horse-training business as they have been forced to dispose of their herd, evidently because they can’t live there but also because of the electromagnetic effects on the animals.

HEALTH REVIEW BLASTED FOR ITS BIAS

READ ENTIRE STORY AT THE SOURCE www.goderichsignalstar.com

June 1, 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sincerely,

Maureen Anderson

From Australia

UNIVERSITY TO INVESTIGATE REDUCING TURBINE NOISE

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

June 1, 2011

By Clare Peddie

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From Ontario

TURBULENT TIMES AHEAD FOR ONTARIO'S WIND INDUSTRY

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

May 31, 2011

PAT CURRIE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FROM FLORIDA

FLORIDA WIND FARM KICKING UP DUST

READ ENTIRE STORY AT SOURCE  www.politico.com

June 1, 2011

By Bob King

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FROM ONTARIO

PROPERTY VALUES BLOWN AWAY: CHATHAM LAWYER

READ THE ENTIRE STORY AT THE SOURCE: Simcoe Reformer, www.simcoe.com

May 30, 2011

By DANIEL PEARCE

“My home has lost 100% of its value,” Houghton-area resident Stephana Johnston told the meeting. “I can’t sleep in my home.”

PORT ROWAN — Wind turbines are hurting the economies of Ontario municipalities by driving down waterfront property values and effectively keeping new industry away, says a Chatham-area lawyer involved in the fight against wind power.

Turbines have become so unpopular people no longer buy homes “if they see one anywhere within 360 degrees,” said Douglas Desmond of Ridgetown, Ont.

This results in diving property values, which in turn leads to lower assessments and fewer property tax dollars collected, Desmond told a session organized by the group Carolinian Canada Coalition.

As well, communities such as Chatham-Kent — which saw its first turbines go up last fall — won’t have the stock of luxury waterfront homes needed “ to court senior management” of companies looking for locations for their factories and offices, he added.

“We need the residential development along our shorelines for the tax base,” Desmond said. “ You can really gouge lakeshore people.

“The economic impact (of the turbines) will extend far into the economy of Chatham-Kent.”

Desmond was speaking to a group of conservationists gathered at the Legion here for an afternoon information session.

Opposition to turbines has been growing across Ontario. Residents in communities that host them — including the west end of Norfolk County — say they are suffering from a myriad of health problems caused by the towers’ swirling blades, such as headaches and sleeplessness.

Some say they have had to move out of their homes completely.

The average drop in property values for homes near turbines is 20-40%, said Desmond, who lives with turbines close to his farm.

“My home has lost 100% of its value,” Houghton-area resident Stephana Johnston told the meeting. “I can’t sleep in my home.”

Stricter regulations for new wind turbine projects could be on the way, however, Desmond said.

An Environmental Review Tribunal hearing held this spring in Chatham could call for a lengthening of the mandatory 550-metre setback between homes and turbines to 1,500-2,000 metres, he told the meeting. Many of the world’s top experts took part in the hearing, Desmond said. “It’ll be an extremely important decision, whatever the tribunal decides . . . They are waiting all over the world for this decision.”

Chatham-Kent now has 203 turbines but plans call for another 430, he said.

Since the first ones went up last fall, complaints from residents have been “coming in fast and furious,” said Desmond. Town halls are handcuffed by the Green Energy Act, which has allows the province to locate wind and solar projects wherever they want without the say-so of local government, the meeting was reminded.

Desmond called for municipalities to band together and demand the province stop excluding them from the planning process for wind and solar developments.

FROM THE U.K.

WINDFARM WARS: FILMING THE RENEWABLE ENERGY DEBATE IN DEVON

READ THE ENTIRE STORY AT THE SOURCE: BBC TV

May 24, 2011

Jeremy Gibson

When I convinced the BBC to commission Windfarm Wars, call me naive, but I had no idea it would take seven years of my life to deliver. And doubtless most of the people we've followed with the camera over all those years didn't figure their lives would evolve this way either.

And, over that time, the whole question of how the country best provides for its burgeoning energy needs in a sustainable way has, quite simply, become more and more tortuous. Toxic even.

Windfarms divide opinion like few other topics. They are beautiful to some, eyesores to others.

 

They are free sustainable energy or expensively inefficient. They desecrate the landscape, or they protect its future existence.

For a filmmaker treading into this minefield, the antagonism between incoming developers and the local residents they seek to convince can be most difficult to negotiate.

Renewable Energy Systems, or RES, first put forward their plans for a windfarm in Devon in 2004.

It would be sited four-and-a-half miles from the northern edge of Dartmoor National Park, in the shallow valley of Den Brook.

I started as the film's executive producer, largely office-based, but with a director and small team on location.

But, seven years later, I had become the sole production member the budget could still afford to have on location, shooting on my own to see the story through - and the windfarm had still not been built

Early on, we were lucky enough to gain access to all sides of the Den Brook dispute, from developers RES, to landowners and protestors alike, and to the council and council planning committee.

As the story went on, and on, over the years, this access widened to include lawyers and barristers, expert witnesses, and the planning inspectors involved in public inquiries.

Maintaining everyone's commitment and involvement over the long years of the process demanded confidentiality and tact.

Each side had to trust that we would not tell the other things that only we knew.

Windfarm Wars was originally commissioned as a single film - an observational documentary. We would follow whatever happened, wherever developments took us.

By the time the commission fell into place and the director of the first film, Olly Lambert, arrived in Devon, RES had already held their introductory exhibitions, where they showed the residents of the nearby villages what the windfarm might look like and where it would be situated, and answered their interests and concerns.

Feelings for and against the windfarm were already running high.

It's difficult to gauge the true feelings of a whole community. One of the ways is to go by those who have bothered to write letters to the council.

When the closing date came, the council had 402 letters and 3,000 questionnaires in objection and 31 letters in support.

We roughly assembled the material as we went along but each time a viewing with the BBC had come due, it was apparent that a chapter may have finished - but the big story was still unresolved.

Luckily they had the vision to keep running with it. Eventually it became a four-part series. BBC channel controllers have come and gone while waiting for it to materialise.

At times, as long waits for the next part of the planning or legal process had to be endured, it was tempting to wrap up the project, but I wanted everyone involved in the whole process to know it was being documented very publicly, and that it would be seen through to the end.

 

And, as concerns about global warming, reduction of carbon dioxide emissions and the security of energy supplies became more and more acute over the years, the project gained in significance, and just had to be seen through.

What emerged is what I hope some people will see as a unique social record of how one of the nation's key dilemmas has unfolded in the early 21st century.

The four films unravel as a narrative story, and while viewers think they may know where they stand initially, a fair few may well change along the way.

Windfarm Wars will no doubt raise tempers, and for some of the many people who've taken part it will be difficult viewing - not least to see how we've all aged through the process.

Perhaps it will be difficult too, because all sides may need to confront and acknowledge mistakes, to review how they could have done things better.

For many, it's clearly been a journey that's taken courage, commitment and faith in the search for what each perceive to be the truth - the best way forward for the good of all. There may be regrets.

I hope, though, that the end product of the process of documentation has been usefully revealing and thought provoking, and that it will, in time, repay the commitment that many gave to the project. We'll see - soon enough.

Jeremy Gibson started as executive producer and also worked as series producer of Windfarm Wars.

From Ontario

WIND TURBINE NOISE ANNOYING 'FACT OF LIFE' PROVINCIAL LAWYER SAYS

READ ENTIRE STORY AT THE SOURCE: Postmedia News, www.ottawacitizen.com

May 27, 2011

By Lee Greenberg

A government lawyer fighting off a major challenge to wind energy in Ontario says the foremost health impact complained about by detractors is not a medical condition at all, but a “fact of life.”

Frederika Rotter cast aspersions on the term “annoyance,” which opponents describe as a critical health condition caused by giant wind turbines, which emit noise that, they say, causes a number of other physiological effects, including sleep disturbance, headache, irritability, problems with concentration and depression.

“Annoyance doesn’t equal ‘serious harm to human health,’ ” Rotter told an Environmental Review Tribunal panel Thursday. “You could be annoyed by your neighbour’s screaming. Everyone suffers from annoyance.”

Eric Gillespie, a lawyer for an antiwind group hoping to keep industrial wind farms out of the province, argued Thursday that the government didn’t adequately consider the adverse effects of wind turbines on human health.

The hearing is an attempt by Gillespie and the grassroots anti-wind organization he represents to appeal an eight-turbine wind farm run by Suncor Energy Services Inc. in southwestern Ontario known as Kent Breeze. The project in Chatham-Kent is to be the first under Ontario’s Green Energy Act, the 2009 legislation designed to encourage wind, solar and other renewable energy projects in the province.

The legislation is lauded by environmentalists but has stirred controversy in rural communities, which, under the new law, have lost the power to determine where the massive turbines will be placed.

While wind energy is generally supported from afar, it generates substantial opposition in host communities. The Green Energy Act was designed to combat that NIMBYism by centralizing the decision-making process.

A large group of angry rural residents joined together in response and funded the current case against Kent Breeze.

While Gillespie, the group’s lawyer, couldn’t pinpoint the cause of the health effects of turbines -saying it could be low-frequency noise, infrasound (not audible to humans) or even visual appearance -he compared the situation to a restaurant serving contaminated food.

The restaurant would be closed, he said, before health authorities determined whether it was “the tomatoes or the fish” that caused the food poisoning.

“We don’t wait,” he said. “We act.” Rotter accused Gillespie of building a spurious, scattergun case against turbines. “The bulk of his evidence is speculation and fearmongering,” she said.

The government lawyer said many of the anti-wind group’s “experts” were in fact advocates.

They include Dr. Robert Mc-Murtry, a notable orthopedic surgeon and former dean of medicine at the University of Western Ontario who became interested in turbines when an installation was proposed near his residence in Prince Edward County.

Rotter said McMurtry and two other physicians relied upon by Gillespie were members of local wind opposition groups as well as an international group that opposes wind turbines.

The research the doctors conducted was not in their field of expertise and was based on “biased and selective evidence,” she said.

“It was done to prove a thesis they already had in pursuit of making their case.”

Gillespie concluded his submissions by stating the Chatham-Kent wind farm, if allowed to go ahead, “will cause serious harm to human health.”

Rotter disagreed, playing down the impact the turbines will have on its neighbours.

“Noise is noise,” she said. “We all live with it. It’s not harmful at the volumes that will be generated at Kent Breeze. Whether you’re annoyed by it is another story.”

The panel will decide on the case by July 18.