Better Plan, Wisconsin

Wisconsin Wind Farm Sold to Duke Energy

Company Will Surpass 1,000 Megawatts of Wind Power

PRESS RELEASE: CHARLOTTE, N.C., May 26, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK) will acquire a 20-megawatt wind farm in operation in Wisconsin.

Duke Energy Renewables, a commercial business unit of Duke Energy, agreed to purchase the Shirley Windpower Project from a subsidiary of Central Hudson Enterprises Corporation on May 24. The wind farm is located on approximately 500 acres of leased land in Glenmore, roughly 30 miles southeast of Green Bay.

The Shirley Windpower Project, which began commercial operation in December 2010, sells all of its output and associated renewable energy credits to Wisconsin Public Service Corporation under the terms of a 20-year power purchase agreement. The eight Nordex 2.5-megawatt (MW) wind turbines that comprise the Shirley Windpower Project are capable of generating enough electricity to power approximately 6,000 homes.

"Our strategic acquisition of the Shirley Windpower Project not only helps us reach the 1,000-megawatt milestone, it serves as a springboard for growth in a new region of the United States," said Greg Wolf, president of Duke Energy Renewables.

The deal is expected to close this summer. The purchase price was not disclosed.

With the addition of the Shirley project, Duke Energy Renewables will own 1,006 MW of generating capacity at 10 U.S. wind farms – four in Wyoming, three in Texas, one in Colorado, one in Pennsylvania, and one in Wisconsin.

On May 24, Duke Energy Renewables announced plans to start construction of a 168-MW wind power project in Kansas in the fall of 2011.

Since 2007, Duke Energy has invested more than $1.5 billion to grow its commercial wind and solar power businesses.

About Duke Energy Renewables

Duke Energy Renewables, part of Duke Energy's Commercial Businesses, is a leader in developing innovative wind and solar energy solutions for customers throughout the United States. The company's growing portfolio of commercial renewable assets includes nine wind farms and four solar farms in operation in five states, totaling approximately 1,000 megawatts in electric-generating capacity.

Headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., Duke Energy is a Fortune 500 company traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol DUK. More information about the company is available on the Internet at: www.duke-energy.com.

NOTE FROM THE BPWI RESEARCH NERD: The Enz family abandoned their home in this wind project because of turbine related problems. The project, which has been on line for less than a year, has already been sold twice. Read about the Enz family and why they left their home by clicking here.

·FROM AUSTRALIA

From:  George Papadopoulos, Pharmacist
To:  Jillian Skinner MP, NSW Minister for Health; Brad Hazzard MP, NSW Planning Minister
Regarding:  Wind Turbine Syndrome victims of the “Crookwell 1 Trial Wind Turbine” site, New South Wales (Australia)
Date:  May 24, 2011

Dear Ministers,

I am a trained and registered, practising health professional (pharmacist).

Yesterday, I met two elderly ladies from the Crookwell region who have been for years quietly suffering the effects of what has been described as Wind Turbine Syndrome.

These ladies have been quietly suffering for years. Their local medical practitioners are unable to do much beyond prescribe antidepressants, sleeping tablets and other medication, or recommend that they move.

There is a lack of “published peer reviewed evidence” that these health problems exist, as the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council’s (NH&MRC) “Rapid Review” report pointed out.  But that does NOT mean there is no health problem, which is what the wind developers and many individuals in government have been wrongly inferring or assuming from the NH&MRC’s report. They have ignored the NH&MRC’s advice to “adopt a precautionary approach.”

I asked one of these ladies why she hasn’t taken the matter further—why she isn’t discussing the matter with the locals. Well, surprisingly, the locals have ostracised her for making comments that might affect the tourist business in Crookwell. So she decided to shut up and suffer, or otherwise become a social outcast.

So who is listening to these quiet victims of this “innovative,” original New South Wales (NSW) wind turbine trial? Why is it that the suffering of these quiet victims has not affected the planning process of newer wind turbine developments?

Strange isn’t it? What was the point of this trial site?

I then decided with two companions to pay my own visit to the local trial industrial wind turbine site—situated amongst rural blocks. I have never been so close to a wind turbine site before. In fact, so close (within 250 metres) thanks to a third victim of this development, who allowed us to access their property. This third victim also needs sleeping pills to sleep and is unduly chronically ill due to Wind Turbine Syndrome.

Well, our experience was absolutely stunning! Almost immediately, pressure sensations in the head abruptly started—plus blocked ears that could not be relieved by swallowing or yawning. We couldn’t hear any loud deafening noises, but the constant whooshing noise was phenomenal—enough to drive you mad.

We were ultimately compelled to leave the site due to severe nausea in all three of us. Perhaps it wasn’t a good idea to get so close to the turbines. Eventually it was only at 5km away that we finally felt totally relieved and normal—we had finally escaped this whirlpool of disaster.

My dear politician, I am not having a joke. This is no good story. It is a very sad reality of what is happening here in Australia, in our meant-to-be progressive, clean democracy where the rights of the individual should be upheld against the little, if any, good that can be found in these developments.

Why are our planning departments ineffective in drafting policies to protect public health? Why aren’t our health departments effective in monitoring the health of individuals surrounding these industrial power sites? Why are the local medical practitioners and other local health professionals so slow in protecting these most sweet, kind-hearted elderly souls?

The reason is, despite these problems being reported globally, no government has listened to its citizens and ensured that appropriate independent acoustic and medical research is commissioned and funded, to help find out why these problems are occurring and how to prevent them. Or, in plain terms, research which will determine the safe distance between turbines and homes and workplaces.

If this were a drug, these experiences would be reported as “Adverse Events” and the drug would be withdrawn, pending further investigation until its safety from unanticipated side effects could be guaranteed. The equivalent in this situation is to immediately instigate a moratorium where turbines are close to homes, and fully investigate these occurrences.

It’s time to do something about it. The recent Federal Senate Inquiry has heard many stories such as the one above, in both written and oral testimony. I hope you feel compelled as a publicly elected official in a democratic country to do something about this great injustice—and stop it from happening again and again in different sites around NSW and the rest of Australia.

READING BETWEEN THE (POWER) LINES

Note from the BPWI Research Nerd: Lobbyists and wind developers tell the media that wind projects are being cancelled in our state because of the 'uncertain' regulatory environment, resulting in headlines in the press and on the web like this:

"TURBINE SETBACK RULE SOUNDS DEATH KNELL ON WISCONSIN'S WIND INDUSTRY"

DEVELOPER PULLS PLUG ON WISCONSIN WIND FARM OVER POLICY UNCERTAINTY

LARGE WISCONSIN WIND FARM KILLED BY POLITICS

Similar headlines came when Wisconsin utility, Alliant, recently announced it was cancelling its plans for a wind project in Green Lake County.

WALKER'S WAR ON WIND ENERGY CLAIMS ANOTHER VICTIM

THIRD LARGE WISCONSIN WIND PROJECT CANCELLED DUE TO LEGISLATIVE ACTION

WISCONSIN  WIND RESTRICTIONS COST UTILITY $5 MILLION

The story in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel began like this:

"Moves to restrict wind farm development in Wisconsin led a Madison utility to take a $5 million charge, citing the difficulty of being able to build the project in Green Lake and Fond du Lac counties."

The '$5 Million dollar charge' appears to be the price paid for the project by Alliant to Florida Power and Light (now known as NextEra) a company with a history of coming into our state to sign up landowners to host wind projects and then selling the leases to utilities. (Apparently undeterred by Wisconsin's 'uncertain regulatory climate' a developer for NextEra is currently prospecting for wind rights in Rock County's Spring Valley Township.)

The purchase of the FPL/NextEra project was reported in March 2009 by Journal Sentinel this way:

"The Madison utility holding company has reached an agreement with NextEra Energy Resources, a unit of FPL Group Inc., to buy wind power from NextEra under a 25-year contract. Under the deal, Alliant also would buy development rights to a future wind farm in the Green Lake area, utility spokesman Rob Crain said....Though specific details about the pricing terms to buy wind power from NextEra are confidential, Crain said, "These are reasonable and cost-competitive projects."

Although the cancellation of the Alliant/NextEra project has been portrayed in the media as another example of Wisconsin politics driving out wind development, the following article sheds light on the real reason Alliant decided to take the $5 million dollar hit and pull out of the project.

Alliant spokesman, Steve Shultz seemed to contradict himself when asked about the reason behind the cancellation of the project.

To Milwaukee Journal Sentinel he said:

"The $5 million charge is in recognition of the fact that it will be much more difficult to build the wind farm given uncertainty in the state’s wind siting requirements, said utility spokesman Steve Schultz."

To The Ripon Press he said:

Schultz emphasized the Green Lake-area wind farm was never a concrete plan or proposal, but rather a possibility.

“At no point have we had any timeline or any specific plan as to say, ‘We’re going to build a wind farm here at such-and-such a date,’” he said.

The article below tells us even more--

ALLIANT PASSES ON LOCAL WIND FARM

READ THE ENTIRE STORY AT THE SOURCE: RIPON PRESS

May 18, 2011

By Aaron Becker

Explaining why Alliant has abandoned the area development rights, Schultz said the Madison-based utility has reached its “renewable portfolio standard” for the state.

“We’re exceeding that, actually,” he said. “And at this point in time, we don’t see that that requirement is going to increase in the near future.”

Alliant Energy has decided not to pursue a significant wind-turbine farm near Green Lake.

In 2009, the utility company bought development rights from NextEra Energy Resources for a region around the Green Lake-Fond du Lac county line, with the idea of a possible wind farm in the future.

If developed, it may have accommodated about 60 turbines. But this month, the company announced it nixed that idea.

“We’re essentially discontinuing those development rights,” Alliant Energy spokesman Steve Schultz said.

This means Alliant has taken a $5 million loss — the cost to purchase the rights.

This cannot be recouped via utility charges. It just goes down as a loss, he explained.

The decision also means the wind energy rights to that area now are fair game for any other company, Schultz said.

It’s not out of the question that another company may be or become interested, as Alliant previously had noted the Green Lake area as having a “strong wind regime,” thanks in part to Big Green.

Explaining why Alliant has abandoned the area development rights, Schultz said the Madison-based utility has reached its “renewable portfolio standard” for the state.

“We’re exceeding that, actually,” he said. “And at this point in time, we don’t see that that requirement is going to increase in the near future.”

Schultz emphasized the Green Lake-area wind farm was never a concrete plan or proposal, but rather a possibility.

“At no point have we had any timeline or any specific plan as to say, ‘We’re going to build a wind farm here at such-and-such a date,’” he said.

Rather, it was a “potential future development,” he said.

Still, it probably would have been a large wind farm, had it come to pass.

“What we had determined was that the site would accommodate about 100 megawatts ... Probably in the range of 60 turbines,” Schultz said.

As of 2010, Wisconsin was home to nine commercial wind farms, with more than 400 megawatts of wind power capacity, according to the Alliant Energy website.

In this region, Fond du Lac County and northeastern Dodge County are home to five of those nine sites. Turbines can be seen from Highway 41.

“Wind power is the fastest-growing energy source in the world,” the website reads.

Wisconsin Power & Light — a subsidiary of Alliant — operates the Cedar Ridge Wind Farm in Fond du Lac County.

The 68-megawatt wind farm began producing emissions-free energy in 2008. The company’s second wind farm, the Bent Tree Wind Farm in Freeborn County, Minn., began commercial operation in February.

“Just because we’re not going to continue the development rights in Green Lake doesn’t mean we’re not committed to renewable energy,” Schultz said.

From Maine

WIND POWER NOISE DISPUTE ON TRANQUIL MAINE ISLAND INTENSIFIES

READ ENTIRE STORY AT THE SOURCE: HUFFINGTON POST

May 24, 2011

By Tom Zeller Jr.

While thousands of wind power enthusiasts and industry representatives gather in Anaheim Calif. for Windpower 2011, the American Wind Power Association's popular annual conference and exhibition, some 3,300 miles due east, wind power is tearing a tiny island community asunder.

In the latest turn, an attorney representing several homeowners living closest to a three-turbine wind installation on the tiny island of Vinalhaven in Maine's Penobscot Bay filed a formal complaint with the Maine Public Utilities Commission on Monday.

The complaint charges that the Fox Island Electric Cooperative, the local utility, and Fox Island Wind, the developer of the wind installation which is owned by the utility, have engaged in repeated harassment of the homeowners, who have argued since shortly after the turbines came online in late 2009 that the machines have been in violation of state noise ordinances. That assertion was subsequently supported by the state Department of Environmental Protection.

The developer has repeatedly disputed those findings, and the majority of the island's residents support the wind farm, which is seen as a source of eco-pride and sensible thrift, ostensibly saving the island from the need to import pricier power from the mainland.

But Monday's complaint states that the residents nearest the turbines have legitimate concerns that have long gone unheeded, despite multiple attempts to resolve the issue through negotiation, and that instead the local utility has recently upped the rhetorical ante by placing two separate "inserts" inside all islanders' utility bills. The inserts claim that legal expenses associated with the neighbors' noise complaints were costing the cooperative hundreds of thousands of dollars, and that as a result, a 5 percent increase in utility rates was needed.

The announcement caused the neighbors, perhaps not surprisingly, to suffer "retribution, harassment and hostility" from fellow Vinalhaven residents who are not within earshot of the turbines, according to the complaint. The utility's tactic also amounted to what the complaint called "intimidation and an abuse of the powers of a utility."

Vinalhaven became a flashpoint last year for a small but persistent backlash against industrial wind power, as residents living nearest the spinning behemoths became vocal about their experiences.

Like nearly all residents of the island, they supported the idea of a wind farm at first. Yet the Fox Island Wind Neighbors, as the loosely knit group of a dozen or so residents dubbed themselves, said they soon began to worry about the noise, being within a one-mile radius of the project site.

Representatives of Fox Island Wind assured them the noise would be minimal. But as Art Lindgren, one of the neighbors, told this reporter last year, their worst fears were confirmed once the turbines were switched on.

“In the first 10 minutes, our jaws dropped to the ground,” he said. “Nobody in the area could believe it. They were so loud.”

Lindgren's lament has been echoed in jurisdictions across the land, as an increasing number of communities come to weigh the innumerable collective benefits of wind power -- clean, non-toxic, no emissions, climate-friendly, water-friendly, renewable, sustainable -- against some of the downsides experienced by those living nearby.

Indeed, proximate residents around the country have cited everything from the throbbing, low-frequency drone to mind-numbing strobe effects as the rising or setting sun slices through the spinning blades:

Others have gone so far as to describe something called "wind turbine syndrome," arising from turbine-generated low-frequency noise and "infrasound," and causing all manner of symptoms -- from headache and dizziness to ear pressure, nausea, visual blurring, racing heartbeat, and panic episodes -- though the science on these claims is still thin.

And there are still lingering and long-standing concerns over hazards presented by turbines to migrating birds and bats.

At Vinalhaven, for example, a 28-month study conducted by ornithologist Richard Podolsky, who was hired by Fox Island Wind, the project's developer, recently declared the turbines' impacts on local eagle and osprey populations to be negligible.

But in March, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sent a letter to attorneys representing the Fox Island Wind project, lambasting those conclusions. The letter questioned the study's methodologies for studying eagle, bat and bird collision assessment and mortality, suggesting that they needed to be more rigorous and better-defined and described.

The wildlife regulators asked that new studies be conducted before a permit necessary to allow the project to proceed -- despite the potential for incidental harm to bald and golden eagle species in the area -- is issued. Both are protected by federal legislation.

Meanwhile, the complaint filed on Monday asks the Maine Public Utility Commission to sanction the Vinalhaven utility and Fox Island Wind for the utility bill inserts, and urges them to prevent any similar communications with ratepayers in the future.

It also asks that the state commission prevent the island utility from attempting to raise rates to cover expenses from its dispute with the affected homeowners going forward -- characterizing such expenses as "the product of mismanagement, and reckless conduct."

Queries sent to officials at Fox Island Wind and the Vinalhaven electric cooperative were not immediately returned Tuesday morning. This report will be updated if they respond.

From New York State

HEALTH CONCERNS RISE FOR PROPOSED WIND FARM 

READ ENTIRE STORY AT THE SOURCE: The Daily News Online

May 20, 2011

By Sally Ross

Horizon, sponsor of the proposed Alabama Ledge Wind Farm, held an open meeting on March 17 at the Alabama Town Hall to respond to environmental concerns raised by the impact of industrial wind turbines. Surprisingly, their collective effect upon local residents’ health was unexplored. Therefore, this overview will attempt to summarize a recent inquiry into the impact of wind turbines upon persons and animals.

Preston G. Ribnick and Lilli-Ann Green, from Wellfleet (Cape Cod), Mass., own a medical consulting agency, advising hospitals and clinics throughout the United States. They have spent almost a year trying to understand the complexities of wind energy. Two foci of their attention have been the wind farms in Falmouth, Mass., and Vinalhaven, Maine. Early this year, Ribnick and Green were the guests of Sarah Laurie, M.D., of Waubra, Australia. Dr. Laurie and her medical colleagues have been compiling files on dozens of persons whose health has been seriously compromised by the Waubra Wind Farm. Ribnick and Green interviewed a sample of the patients.

Waubra, 100 kilometers (62 miles) from Melbourne, is primarily an agricultural community of growers who raise livestock — cattle, poultry and sheep — as well as a variety of crops. It isn’t uncommon for farms to have been in families for two or more generations, and like much of Australia, drought conditions have prevailed for nearly a decade. Wind turbines seemed like a godsend; a stable source of rental income to accompany the precarious economy.

The Waubra Wind Farm is an installation of 128 turbines in as many miles; one turbine to one mile. After the industrial wind turbine complex was up and running in 2009, dozens of previously healthy persons reported serious health issues with themselves and their animals. Here are some common complaints. They are not age-specific. They occur in children as well as in mature adults.

People — dangerously high rates in blood pressure, racing heartbeats, stroke, heart attack, sleep disturbance, involuntary neurological “upper lip quiver,” ringing in ears, inability to concentrate, severe headache, eye pain, and dizziness.

Animals — chickens laying eggs without shells, nearly one-half of the lambs expiring shortly after birth, disoriented sheep, dogs as well as birds displaying extremely agitated and abnormal behavior, and the virtual disappearance of bats.

Conditions inside of homes were worse than those outside, because houses vibrated. As a result, some people have left hearth and home and now consider themselves to be “industrial refugees.” How far away were these physiological complaints reported? Up to 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) distance from the wind turbine installations. By inference, these data should raise our local concern for those residents in Genesee, and nearby counties, who live well beyond the proposed sites for turbine installations in the town of Alabama.

The results of Ribnick, Green and Laurie’s work is widely available. A hard copy of the article upon which this summary [can be downloaded by CLICKING HERE]. Anyone opting for an electronic link, as well as additional scientific information, place contact me.

Sally Ross, Ph.D., lives in Oakfield. Write her via e-mail at srladygrail@gmail.com.

From Malone, Wisconsin

LIFE IN A WIND FARM

Thank you for the information about wind farms. We live in one and life has changed.  Quite frankly, it has been somewhat of a nightmare. We have to deal with bad tv reception, flicker and loud swoshing noises at times. We could have been part of this project as they approached us about using our land but we declined because we didn't feel educated enough. They went up anyway.

From Massachusetts

FALMOUTH DREAMS TURNED NIGHTMARE

READ ENTIRE STORY AT THE SOURCE: Cape Cod Times, www.capecodonline.com

May 24, 2011

By ELIZABETH ANDERSEN

"The 7½-ton, 135-foot-long blades of the turbine slice through the air every second, creating a sound pressure that feels like the pounding of a bass instrument coming through the walls day and night. Just try to imagine that sound always there in your yard and in every room in your house, with no opportunity to turn it off. You go insane!"

"What we have so painfully learned this year is that there has been no place to go for help. Not our town hall, nor state representatives; not the police, not the DEP, nor the Department of Public Health. What is happening wasn’t supposed to happen. So we wait and suffer while it is “figured out.”

My husband and I met in 1976 and bonded over a shared love of nature. We have long considered ourselves conservationists, not only because our wonderful Depression-era parents taught us to use things up and wear them out, but because we learned our lesson from the oil embargo of the ’70s.

This awareness of the Earth’s declining natural resources led my husband, some 30 years ago, to start one of the first alternative energy construction companies on the Cape. And when we built our home on Blacksmith Shop Road 20 years ago, we designed it to be an energy-efficient system in itself. We also recycle, compost, drive small cars, use fluorescent bulbs, turn off lights when not in use, unplug appliances using phantom electricity, keep our heat down to 60 degrees in the winter and repurpose many things that would otherwise be thrown away.

Yet we, and our neighbors, have been criticized and made to feel guilty for complaining about ill health effects directly related to the size and proximity of utility-size wind turbines to our homes.

My husband and I were aware that the town Falmouth had been exploring the use of turbines for years, and we thought this was a good idea. However, when two turbines, already turned down by two other towns, became available, Falmouth officials chose to ignore the Falmouth windmill bylaw already on the books and erected two 400-foot mechanical machines, one 1,320 feet directly north of our home.

We, and our neighbors, were intentionally shut out of a special permitting process so that we would not hold up financing or construction in any way. Consequently, we have been living a nightmare ever since the turbine went online last year.

The 7½-ton, 135-foot-long blades of the turbine slice through the air every second, creating a sound pressure that feels like the pounding of a bass instrument coming through the walls day and night. Just try to imagine that sound always there in your yard and in every room in your house, with no opportunity to turn it off. You go insane!

At first we naively thought our Falmouth administrators would be concerned for us when informed of our health problems. Since April 2010, we and our neighbors have continually called, written, emailed or spoken in person to our town officials and begged them for some relief. The response we got for one year: no response. We contacted our building commissioner, zoning board of appeals, selectmen, and especially our board of health: no response.

Unfortunately for us, town administrators, in their haste to be “green,” did not research the negative impacts of utility-scale turbines near residential areas, and were taken by surprise by all of our complaints. Because the town of Falmouth owns the turbine, the administrators, again, chose to shut us out. We finally were forced to go to court just to get them to acknowledge us.

We wish we could list all the details of the cruel indifference we have been subjected to for a year, but the log we keep is pages too long. It was not until my husband and I were so exhausted from the ill treatment of turbine and town that we had to be civilly disobedient at a town meeting to plead for some relief. The Falmouth selectmen finally helped by way of a temporary shutoff when wind speeds reach 23 mph.

What we have so painfully learned this year is that there has been no place to go for help. Not our town hall, nor state representatives; not the police, not the DEP, nor the Department of Public Health. What is happening wasn’t supposed to happen. So we wait and suffer while it is “figured out.”

My husband and I still wholeheartedly embrace the movement toward alternative energy, but, once again, both the Massachusetts government and our town government put the cart before the horse and did not do all they could have done to protect the people. And from the looks of things going on in other towns, it is going to be up to the townspeople to fight for responsible turbine siting, to protect the health of their fellow man.

Elizabeth Andersen lives in Falmouth.

THIS FROM MICHIGAN:

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

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

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

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

FROM ONTARIO:

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

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

May 21, 2011

By Don Butler

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE REALITY OF WIND POWER

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Click on the images below to view the Latest video from "Our Life with DeKalb Turbines", a website documenting this famiy's life in a NextEra wind project in Illinois.

While wind lobbyists claim that uncertainty about wind siting rules in our state is drivng away the wind business, NextEra is currently prospecting for wind leases in Wisconsin.