Entries in Wisconsin wind power (20)
3/20/10 DOUBLE FEATURE: What an Illinois farming family is saying to the wind developers AND Wisconsin Big Industry is saying about Wisconsin Big Wind.
SOURCE: Bureau County Republican,
Ann Burkey Brezinski
March 17, 2010
I am writing on behalf of Eileen Burkey’s and the late Willard Burkey’s farm located north of Walnut. My great-grandparents purchased and moved to this property in the 1890s.
Since that time, my family has been devoted and faithful caretakers of this acreage. Further, we intend to continue this stewardship for future generations of our family, not just for the benefit of our family but because it is the right thing to do. We are the beneficiaries of a limited, endangered resource that should not be sacrificed.
We will not sign the Wind Project Lease Agreement for four, irrefutable reasons.
First, we will not diminish our tillable acres — either by area or by productivity. To do otherwise is both short-sighted and irresponsible. A wind turbine and its access roadways would decrease our tillable acres. The productivity of the soil would be diminished by compaction and damage to the farm tile system.
Second, we will not sign a contract that provides unilateral “sole discretion” in a LaSalle Street, Chicago limited liability corporate tenant regarding numerous matters concerning our family farm. We are obviously in this for the long haul and will not let our property be irrevocably abused and controlled by outsiders for their financial gain.
Third, the proposed Wind Project Lease Agreement is extremely protective of the wind turbine company, and it does not afford the farm owner the same legal protections. My professional reservations include the potential 70-year duration of the lease and its ramifications upon future generations.
It is impossible to predict the financial viability of the developer or its successors for that time period, or even to gauge the reasonableness of the terms for such a time period. Also, the lease’s list of easement effects will affect the quality of life of anyone in the vicinity of the turbines; this list includes everything from sound pollution to visual blight to air turbulence to radio-frequency interference, to name a few.
I question whether the proposed payment structure is sufficient to compensate for this open-ended list. Further, the lease terms provide that a landowner cannot construct any structure anywhere on his property without first meeting with the developer in order to determine a site that will not impact the developer’s rights. The overriding theme in the proposed lease is clearly the developer’s rights, not the rights of landowners.
Fourth, we are very concerned about evidence showing farmland values are lowered by the existence of neighboring wind turbines. We will not sign a contract that will detrimentally impact the farmland values of our neighbors and friends, and would hope that our neighbors and friends would have the same consideration for us.
Ann Burkey Brezinski
Current 10% Renewables Mandate Costs Too Much, Creates Unneeded Generation
Wisconsin currently has much more energy supply than it has energy demand – indeed, its excess energy supply is more than twice the amount required by law.
Unfortunately, the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin has concluded that Wisconsin’s 10% Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) trumps our energy needs, energy costs, and statutory conservation requirements, which effectively renders meaningless those “off ramps” that were intended to serve as a safety valve should the cost of renewable energy become too expensive.
We currently get about 5% of our statewide needs from renewable generation – and we have a long, expensive way to go to meet even the current 10% RPS. Yet we have no immediate, or even short term, need for more generation. Wisconsin is building a lot of unnecessary generation at a premium cost.
Crane Creek (2008) – Wisconsin Public Service Corporation – $251 million – 99 MW
The Commission concluded that Crane Creek was not needed until at least 2021 and that no new generation was needed until at least 2018.
The Commission models showed that a natural gas turbine was less expensive than a wind farm.
WPSC has a roughly 50% reserve margin - it already has way more energy supply than demand.
Bent Tree (2009) – Wisconsin Power and Light Company – $500 million – 200 MW
The Commission approved Bent Tree with a sales forecast that did not include WPL’s extraordinary loss of electric sales over the past year and more (General Motors, Domtar paper mill and other major energy-intensive companies).
WPL requested and received $30 million in its last rate case (Docket 6680-UR-117) for the up-front construction costs of the wind farm that has not yet put any iron in the ground.
Bent Tree was the biggest line item in a rate increase request of roughly $100 million or 10%.
Blue Sky Green Field (2007) – WE Energies – over $300 million – 145 MW
The Commission approved Blue Sky Green Field even though it expressly concluded that the energy would not be needed until around 2015 - eight years after it approved the project.
The Commission recognized that the Project was more expensive than fossil fuel generation.
The Commission approved the Project because of WE Energies need to meet its RPS mandate.
Glacier Hills (2010) – WE Energies – up to $452 million – 200 MW
The Commission concluded that WE Energies needed Glacier Hills in order to meet its RPS mandate, not because it needed more generation.
In her concurring opinion, Commission Azar recognized that WE Energies - and the state as a whole - may soon be exporting energy that it does not itself need, given “the current excess of capacity in Wisconsin.” And yet, the PSC still approved this project.
WE Energies still plans to spend over $1 billion in new projects to comply with the 10% RPS law.
A decade ago Wisconsin’s electric rates were among the lowest in the country; now, its rates are among the highest in the Midwest. These four wind projects alone will cost ratepayers at minimum $1.5 billion and they are or will soon be producing energy that Wisconsin does not currently need. The reason the Commission approved these projects was to meet the current 10% RPS mandate, and we are only at 5% statewide right now.
The Governor’s Task Force on Global Warming recommends boosting the RPS to 25 percent by 2025. Imagine what a 150% increase in RPS requirement will do to customer bills, at a time when the generation simply is not needed. We will be generation rich, yes. But cash poor.
WANT MORE? CLICK HERE TO READ TODAY'S "WIND TURBINES IN THE NEWS"
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2/16/10: When you are old and out of shape.... which for industrial wind turbines means past the age of 20, but the contract with the wind developer goes on and on
CLICK HERE to read about Wind Energy's Ghosts
Photos of an abandoned wind farm on the island of Hawaii
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2/2/10 Wind Wars: Wind industry continues to deny negative health impact in spite of increasing numbers of complaints from wind farm residents AND Let's review: What do night time noise levels have to do with an increased risk of coronary heart disease?
“The new data indicate that noise pollution is causing more deaths from heart disease than was previously thought."“Until now, the burden of disease related to the general population’s exposure to environmental noise has rarely been estimated in nonoccupational settings at the international level.”---Deepak Prasher, professor of audiology, University College in London
It is a bright mid-September day. Hal and Judy Graham are sitting in the living room of their restored 19th century farmhouse, which looks out over the still-green rolling hills near Cohocton, a rural community in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York.
The pastoral view is punctuated by two 420-foot-high structures. The sleek towers, almost alien in appearance, are wind turbines. One of them stands 1,000 feet from the farmhouse, on a neighbor's property. The second is 2,000 feet away on the Grahams' own land.
On this afternoon in the late summer of 2009, the twin Goliaths are still. One was shut down last winter after a flurry of attempted repairs, and the other has unaccountably been shut down for just a couple of days. But the Grahams expect it to be only a temporary respite. When the winds are high and the turbines are spinning fast, "it sounds like a jet engine taking off in your backyard," says Judy Graham. "Only it never stops."
In 2004, the Grahams signed a contract that permitted a company named UPC Wind (since renamed First Wind) to construct and operate a wind turbine on their property as part of a 50-turbine "farm" that stretches across a number of properties. Later, the town of Cohocton passed an ordinance that effectively exempts leaseholders from any noise controls.
"They told us that the noise at 900 feet would be no louder than the hum of a refrigerator," says Hal Graham. But he says the reality has been far different. "We can't sleep. We can't watch TV. This has been a disaster for us and our neighbors."
Wind power is one of the current darlings of the movement to find alternative energy sources, and in 2008 the United States surpassed Germany as the world's leading producer of electricity generated by wind. "With the right government policies, this cost-effective source of energy could provide at least 20 percent of the nation's electricity by 2030, create thousands of jobs, and revitalize farms and rural communities-without consuming any natural resource or emitting any pollution or greenhouse gases," says the American Wind Energy Association on its website.
But an increasingly vocal minority says there is another, more sinister, side to wind power. They acknowledge that, from a distance, the towering sentinels seem to spin lightly and noiselessly in the wind. But closer up, they insist, turbines emit stomach-jarring whooshes and rumbles, and an impossible-to-ignore rhythmic hum that disrupts sleep and causes headaches, nausea and fatigue in some people.
Another problem is shadow flicker, caused when the spinning blades chop up sunlight, creating a swooping pattern of shadows that some people say makes them woozy and sick.
Dr. Nina Pierpont, a pediatrician in Malone, N.Y., at the north edge of Adirondack Park, has coined the phrase wind turbine syndrome to describe the cluster of symptoms-sleeplessness, headaches, depression, dizziness and nausea-that she has identified in people she has studied who live within a mile of industrial-size wind turbines. In November, Pierpont published a report on some of her research, Wind Turbine Syndrome: A Report on a Natural Experiment. Pierpont's findings have been criticized by some in the wind energy industry, partly on grounds that her study looked at fewer than 40 people.
• • •
The growing contentiousness over the health effects of wind turbines already has resulted in some sharp legal fights -with more sure to come-over where turbines should be located and how they should be regulated. And because wind power can be harnessed most efficiently in wide-open spaces-the largest wind farms contain hundreds of turbines-the task of sorting out these issues has fallen primarily on local government bodies representing communities such as Cohocton.
According to a U.S. Chamber of Commerce webpage titled "Project No Project," which tracks energy projects that have been stalled or killed, more than 70 wind farm proposals around the country are bogged down by moratoriums, restrictive ordinances, environmental challenges and lawsuits filed by community groups.
Although the states and even the federal government are inexorably being drawn into the issue, for now it is local government taking the lead to craft ordinances and zoning regulations that try to answer questions like these: When it comes to placing wind turbines near residences, how close is too close? And how loud is too loud?
Under the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, land use generally is regulated at the local level through the police power of towns, cities and counties to protect the health, safety and general welfare of their residents, says Glenn M. Stoddard, an attorney in Eau Claire, Wis., who has helped local governments in his state develop wind ordinances.
Generally, a local government can't just ban an industry outright, Stoddard says. "There's a zoning doctrine that basically prohibits what we call ‘exclusionary zoning' in which a local government simply discriminates against a certain type of land use," he says. There must be a rational reason for restricting an industry that is related to the health, safety or general welfare of the populace.
This is a tricky standard when it comes to regulating noise. "There's plenty of evidence that noise makes people sick," says Arline L. Bronzaft, a New York City psychologist who has conducted landmark research linking classroom noise to learning deficits in children. According to the World Health Organization, noise can interfere with sleep, speech, learning and social behavior, as well as cause stress, cardiovascular problems and, at high decibel levels, impaired hearing.
But there are no national standards defining just how much noise is too much. The U.S. Noise Pollution and Abatement Act of 1972 promised to "promote an environment for all Americans free from noise that jeopardizes their health or welfare." But the Office of Noise Abatement and Control created to enforce the law has been defunded since the Reagan administration.
The EPA's website contains guidelines on acceptable noise levels based on the agency's 1974 Information on Levels of Environmental Noise Requisite to Protect Public Health and Welfare with an Adequate Margin of Safety-commonly known as the Noise Levels Document. But Les Blomberg, executive director of the Noise Pollution Clearinghouse in Montpelier, Vt., says these guidelines were developed with the residents of noisy urban environments in mind. Too often, he says, the guidelines are applied without making the adjustments suggested by the Noise Levels Document for quieter rural areas or for noise with characteristics that make it particularly troublesome.
• • •
On Sept. 19, the town board of Italy-a tiny hamlet about 15 miles northeast of Cohocton-met to hear comments on a proposal by Ecogen Wind of West Seneca, N.Y., to erect 18 wind turbines on the surrounding hills.
Many opponents of the proposal wore black T-shirts emblazoned with "50 dBA No Way."
The slogan refers to daytime noise limits measured at property lines near wind turbines. A limit of 50 decibels on the A-weighted scale-the most common measure for sounds perceived by the human ear-is the standard set by most local wind ordinances. Most also require a minimum setback from residences of 1,000 feet.
That would seem to be in line with EPA guidance, which suggests an outdoor noise limit of 55 dBA, though the Noise Levels Document also suggests that, in quiet rural areas, 10 dBA be subtracted from this level.
Some argue that wind turbine noise may be a problem even at this level. "It appears that the noise that comes from wind farms bothers people at lower decibel levels than aircraft noise and road noise," says Jim Cummings, executive director of the Acoustic Ecology Institute in Santa Fe, N.M.
For one thing, the whirling of the blades causes a rhythmic pulsing that Bronzaft likens to "the drip, drip, drip of the faucet that makes you crazy, crazy, crazy." Noise that pulses should be adjusted down by 5 dBA, suggests the EPA's Noise Levels Document.
Then there's low-frequency noise-sound that vibrates relatively slowly and is pitched low on the scale of sounds audible to the human ear. It travels farther and penetrates walls and windows more efficiently than high-frequency noise, making it hard to block out. Think of the pulsing sound you hear when a car blasting its stereo pulls up next to you at the stoplight-that's low-frequency sound, stripped of its higher frequency components by the closed car windows.
According to the World Health Organization, low-frequency sound can accentuate the negative health impacts of noise, and even sounds below 30 dBA can disturb sleep.
The American Wind Energy Association and other wind power advocates generally dismiss claims of conditions like wind turbine syndrome. In December, the association and its Canadian counterpart issued a report concluding that, while some people may be "annoyed" by wind turbine noise, there is no reason to believe such noise creates health risks.
Some wind advocates suggest that, in certain cases, claims of health concerns may be a smokescreen for another reason why some people oppose wind turbines: They don't like the way they look.
"My impression is that a lot of the opponents are people who want to stop the turbine coming into their backyards, and not because they think that it will cause this or that health problem," says Patricia E. Salkin, director of the Government Law Center at Union University's Albany Law School. She also is a past chair of the ABA Section of State and Local Government Law.
A study conducted in the Netherlands, for instance, found that people disturbed by the look of wind turbines were more likely to be bothered by the noise, as well.
"What's clear is that there are people making claims" about the health impact of wind turbines, says Jeff Deyette, a senior energy analyst for the Union of Concerned Scientists, a strong advocate of wind power headquartered in Cambridge, Mass. "But there are really not a whole lot of, or hardly any, epidemiological studies to bear them out."
Trey Cox, an attorney at Lynn Tillotson Pinker and Cox in Dallas, represented a wind farm developer in what he says is the first nuisance claim based on noise impacts to be heard by a jury.
The plaintiffs lived in the vicinity of the Horse Hollow Wind Farm near Abilene, Texas. With 421 turbines spread out over 47,000 acres, Horse Hollow, owned by FPL Energy, is the world's second-largest wind farm. The nearby property owners sought injunctive relief based on claims of nuisance. At trial, defense sound experts testified that, after logging 675 hours of sound measurements at plaintiffs' residences, they found that wind turbine noise averaged 28 dBA at a distance of 1.7 miles from the wind turbines, and 44 dBA at 1,700 feet. In an 11-1 verdict, the jury found that these noise levels did not constitute a nuisance.
At trial, Cox was struck by the testimony of a plaintiff he described as "a wonderful woman, a salt-of-the-earth type," who testified that the sound of the wind turbine on her land was equivalent to the sound of a B-1 bomber.
"Well, I knew that was impossible," says Cox. "A B-1 bomber makes a sound around 101 decibels. I think that when people don't like the wind turbine, they become bigger, they become louder and they become uglier in their minds."
On appeal to the Texas Court of Appeals in Rankin v. FPL Energy, the nearby property owners argued that the trial court erred when it instructed the jury not to consider aesthetics in deciding whether the wind farm was a nuisance to those on nearby properties. The appellate court upheld the trial court, however, on grounds that aesthetics are not a basis for nuisance claims under Texas law.
Cummings says the argument that opposition to wind turbines is primarily a matter of what they look like "drives me crazy." He acknowledges, however, that there is a strong psychological component to noise perception, as well as a wide variation in individuals' responses to sound. The same low-frequency pulsing sound that drives one person up a wall can be imperceptible to another, and to a third it is soothing background noise.
"But one of the questions is: How much of the population living around a wind farm is it OK to disturb?" Cummings says. "If 20 percent of the residents are bothered, is that OK?"
• • •
It is clear from the prevalence of pro-wind posters displayed in yards and windows in Cohocton that the wind farm enjoys strong support from many residents. In 2007, town supervisor Jack Zigenfus defeated anti-wind activist Judy Hall by a vote of 506-210, according to local press reports. By 2008, Zigenfus was boasting about a 30 percent reduction in local taxes because of cash incentives First Wind paid to the town.
In neighboring Italy, however, opposition to its proposed wind farm has been fueled by the complaints of people living or working within earshot of the Cohocton wind turbines. At the town board meeting in September, a Cohocton man asked Italy to reject a wind project proposed by Ecogen Wind because "I may need someplace with peace and quiet to move to."
Others, though, urged the board to approve the project, some because they hoped for lower taxes and some because they feared that the developer would sue if the town didn't go along with the plan.
"They've got a lot more money than we'll ever have," said one speaker. Another said, "You have to choose your battles, and I think this battle here, we're going to lose if we fight it."
John Servo, a resident of neighboring Prattsburgh, scoffed at giving in. "If people in 1776 had that attitude, we'd still be part of the British empire," said Servo, who belongs to Advocates for Prattsburgh, which opposes a proposed wind farm outside of that community.
But the fear of being sued is real. In 2006, after Italy repeatedly extended a six-month moratorium that was first imposed in 2004, Ecogen sued the town in federal court. Ecogen argued that the moratorium was facially unconstitutional because it denied the company the use of property without due process.
Judge David G. Larimer of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York in Rochester rejected Ecogen's argument, however, ruling the moratorium, though "suspicious" in its length, could serve a legitimate public purpose. Still, the town had to pay fees and costs of $80,000 when Larimer rejected its claim that they be paid by Ecogen.
And as the issue heated up again during 2009, the town board sent a letter to residents in July expressing fears that if the town didn't eventually accept Ecogen's proposal, "because of wind resources in the town of Italy and the push for renewable energy, industrial wind turbines will eventually be forced on the town by either the state or federal government."
Several states, including Ohio, Washington and Wisconsin, have passed laws restricting local control over wind turbine projects.
A 1982 Wisconsin statute, for instance, allowed local governments to regulate solar power projects only when the health and safety of residents were specifically involved.
Local regulation was prohibited as a matter of the general welfare. The state legislature amended the statute in 1993 to extend the same restrictions on local government bodies regarding wind energy projects.
Still, some local governments, basing their actions on health and safety concerns alone, have passed ordinances blocking or limiting wind energy projects that developers say are equivalent to imposing a ban on the industry. Stoddard helped draft an ordinance adopted by the town of Wilton, about 75 miles northwest of Madison, establishing setbacks of 2,640 feet from residences and noise limits of 40 dBA or 40 dBC (decibels measured on the C-weighted scale, a better assessment of low-frequency noise) within 100 feet of any residence, and no more than 5 dBA or dBC over ambient noise levels.
On Oct. 2, Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle signed Senate Bill 185 into law, directing the state's Public Service Commission to develop standards for siting wind power facilities-including noise levels and setbacks-that local governments will not be permitted to exceed.
"What it really boils down to is a kind of classic legal battle over rights," says Stoddard. "If someone has enough clout, they can override someone else's rights."
A law like Wisconsin Senate Bill 185 would be a tough sell in New York, which has a strong tradition of home rule, says Clifford C. Rohde, an associate at Cooper Erving & Savage in Albany who maintains the Wind Power Law Blog.
Nevertheless, there have been calls for the New York legislature to revive Article X of the New York Public Service Law, which took siting decisions for power facilities out of the hands of local governments. The law expired in 2003.
Salkin says the federal government should step in, as it did with regard to cellular communication towers, which had also faced tough local opposition due to concerns about possible health effects caused by the radio frequency radiation emitted by the towers. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 barred local governments from considering the environmental impact of radio frequency radiation emissions when regulating the placement of cell towers.
Fearing the possibility that federal or state government might force wind farms on them, some local government bodies are seeking to strike the best deals they can get with developers while they still hold some of the cards, says Arthur Giacalone, an attorney in East Aurora, N.Y., near Buffalo, who represents homeowners in disputes relating to wind power.
A town board may, for instance, offer a wind farm a special-use permit instead of requiring the developer to obtain a rezoning. "Once a project has been given a special-use permit, the developer can do pretty much what it wants to do," Giacalone says.
In some cases, towns skimp on, or even bypass, the environmental review mandated by New York's State Environmental Quality Review Act. The review is supposed to take into account the impact of the project on noise, human health, aesthetic resources and community or neighborhood character.
Giacalone represented a group of residents in a successful bid to overturn a wind ordinance that had been adopted by the town of Hamlin, west of Rochester, on this basis. Upholding the challenge in HPG v. Hamlin Town Board, Justice David Michael Barry of the trial-level New York Supreme Court ruled on Jan. 5, 2009, that the town had failed to take the requisite "hard look" at the environmental impact of wind energy development.
Some members of town boards might have their own reasons not to take a hard look at wind farm proposals. Typically, developers interested in setting up a wind farm first negotiate contracts with local landowners that offer annual payments of $3,000 or more to construct and operate one or more wind turbines on their properties. Then they take their plans to the town board for approval.
But in small agricultural communities, members of the town board often are major landowners as well, says Rohde. By the time the wind project developer approaches the town government, board members or their relatives might have financial stakes in the project. In July 2008 the New York attorney general's office launched an investigation into alleged improper dealings between wind farm developers and local officials, leading to a voluntary code of conduct by which 16 companies, accounting for 90 percent of wind energy development in the state, have agreed to abide.
• • •
The sense that they were up against a combination of moneyed interests, as well as federal and state policies, left some opponents of the Italy project discouraged. At the town board meeting in September, 119 people spoke in opposition to the project while 20 expressed support, according to a tally kept by an anti-wind group. Still, one opponent said, "I don't know if anybody is listening."
But on Oct. 5, the Italy town board surprised both opponents and supporters of the project. Despite being offered a package of amenities-including a one-time cash payment of $1.6 million for a new town hall addition, a salt barn and a new all-wheel-drive truck, as well as additional cash payments estimated at $300,000 to $400,000 per year-the board voted to deny Ecogen's application.
Dallas attorney Cox says wind project developers would much prefer that such decisions be made higher up the governmental ladder-at least at the state level. "The problem from the energy generators' point of view," he says, "is that when you consider how much they invest in a project, it's a pretty scary thing to turn it over to 12 people to decide if this billion-dollar project is going to be taken down."
But Cox also says the industry should be flexible about responding to concerns. One approach would be to extend setbacks to keep wind turbines farther away from residences. "I don't think that turbines are a nuisance by sound or by sight even if you put them 300 or 500 feet from residences," says Cox, "but if you put them farther away it'll go a long way toward alleviating people's complaints."
In a move that sent shock waves throughout the industry, the minister of energy for the Canadian province of Ontario in September proposed setbacks of about 1,800 feet from any residence, and at least 3,000 feet for wind turbines producing more than 106 dBA of noise at their bases. The Canadian Wind Energy Association estimated that these guidelines would eliminate or require extensive redesign of 79 of the province's 103 "shovel ready" wind projects.
Others question the value of mandatory setbacks. They may be an oversimplistic solution that would unnecessarily limit the number of sites that can be developed as wind farms, says Dwight H. Merriam, a partner at Robinson & Cole in Hartford, Conn., who is chair-elect of the ABA Section of State and Local Government Law (and the section's liaison to the ABA Journal). At the very least, he says, setbacks should be rebuttable, allowing developers to go to court and argue that they can be modified in some cases.
Deyette at the Union of Concerned Scientists says regulators should not leap to the assumption that setbacks always will be the answer to complaints about wind turbines. In many cases, he says, the solution may be mitigation measures such as strategically planted trees that muffle low-frequency sound and block shadow flicker.
"Wind is a viable and necessary part of our climate change mitigation strategy," Deyette says. "And it's available today, so we should be wrapping it up as quickly as possible. That being said, if it's not being done appropriately, we're going to be experiencing increased pushback."
Cummings of the Acoustic Ecology Institute agrees that the wind energy industry must take opposition into account. "My concern is that if the industry is too aggressive about siting wind farms, it's going to make the next round of wind farm development more problematic," he says. "The Internet is already full of people talking about how horrible the wind farms are."
What's the connection between night time noise and coronary heart disease? What do wind turbines have to do with any of this?
According to the results of a peer-reviewed study made available by the National Institutes of Health, the connection between noise and coronary heart disease -particularly at night- is serious.
This article by M. Nathaniel Mead helps us understand why the 50 dbA noise limit for wind farms in Wisconsin is not enough protection.
NOISE POLLUTION: THE SOUND BEHIND HEART EFFECTS
“The new data indicate that noise pollution is causing more deaths from heart disease than was previously thought,” says working group member Deepak Prasher, a professor of audiology at University College in London—perhaps hundreds of thousands around the world. “Until now, the burden of disease related to the general population’s exposure to environmental noise has rarely been estimated in nonoccupational settings at the international level.”
The separate noise-related working group first convened in 2003 and began sifting through data from studies in European countries to derive preliminary estimates of the impact of noise on the entire population of Europe. They then sought to separate the noise-related health effects from those of traffic-related air pollution and other confounding factors such as physical inactivity and smoking. In 2007, the group published Quantifying Burden of Disease from Environmental Noise, their preliminary findings on the health-related effects of noise for Europeans. Their conclusion: about 2% of Europeans suffer severely disturbed sleep, and 15% suffer severe annoyance due to environmental noise, defined as community noise emitted from sources such as road traffic, trains, and aircraft.
According to the new figures, long-term exposure to traffic noise may account for approximately 3% of CHD deaths (or about 210,000 deaths) in Europe each year. To obtain the new estimates, the working group compared households with abnormally high noise exposure with those with quieter homes. They also reviewed epidemiologic data on heart disease and hypertension, and then integrated these data into maps showing European cities with different levels of environmental noise.
The noise threshold for cardiovascular problems was determined to be a chronic nighttime exposure of at least 50 A-weighted decibels, the noise level of light traffic. Daytime noise exposures also correlated with health problems, but the risk tended to increase during the nighttime hours. “Many people become habituated to noise over time,” says Prasher. “The biological effects are imperceptible, so that even as you become accustomed to the noise, adverse physiological changes are nevertheless taking place, with potentially serious consequences to human health.”
To further assess the noise-related disease burden, the working group estimated disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) due to noise-related CHD. DALYs reflect how much the expectancy of healthy life is reduced by premature death or by disability caused by disease. This measure lets policy makers compare disease burdens associated with different environmental factors and forecast the likely impact of preventive policies. The working group estimated that in 2002 Europeans lost 880,000 DALYs to CHD related to road traffic noise.
Chronic high levels of stress hormones such as cortisol, adrenaline, and noradrenaline can lead to hypertension, stroke, heart failure, and immune problems. According to a review of the research in the January–March 2004 issue of Noise and Health, arousal associated with nighttime noise exposure increased blood and saliva concentrations of these hormones even during sleep. “Taken together, recent epidemiologic data show us that noise is a major stressor that can influence health through the endocrine, immune, and cardiovascular systems,” says Prasher.
Other recent support for an association of cardiovascular mortality with noise comes from a study published in the 1 January 2007 issue of Science of the Total Environment. The results showed an 80% increased risk of cardiovascular mortality for women who judged themselves to be sensitive to noise. “Given these findings, noise sensitivity is a serious candidate to be a novel risk factor for cardiovascular mortality in women,” says Marja Heinonen-Guzejev, a research scientist at the University of Helsinki and lead author of the paper.
There is also a potential interaction between noise and air pollution, given that individuals exposed to traffic noise, for example, are often simultaneously exposed to air pollution. Prasher is currently investigating the effects of noise alone and in combination with chemical pollution.
The broader implications of chronic noise exposure also need to be considered. “Noise pollution contributes not only to cardiovascular disease, but also to hearing loss, sleep disruption, social handicaps, diminished productivity, impaired teaching and learning, absenteeism, increased drug use, and accidents,” says physician Louis Hagler, who coauthored a review on noise pollution in the March 2007 Southern Medical Journal. “The public health repercussions of increasing noise pollution for future generations could be immense.”
Written by M. Nathaniel Mead Environ Health Perspect. 2007 November; 115(11): A536–A537.
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1/29/10 How many is too many? Columbia County learns of yet another wind developers plans AND Glacier Hill's 18 turbine "Country Cousin" wind project has no plans to 'buy American'
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Officials of the Madison-based Wind Capital Group came to County Board's planning and zoning committee almost 18 months ago. They asked for, and got, a conditional use permit for two test towers, each about 197 feet high, to measure wind velocity and direction, to determine if southern Columbia County has adequate wind to sustain a 25- to 33-turbine wind farm capable of generating up to 50 megawatts of electricity.
So far, the data collected at the test towers indicates that southern Columbia County's wind seems sufficient to sustain a wind energy operation, said Tom Green of Wind Capital Group. The planned two-year testing period is scheduled to end in August.
Green said he continues to think that southern Columbia County would be a good location for what would be the company's first Wisconsin wind farm, although it has operations in other states such as Iowa.
Wind Capital Group would sell the wind farm's electricity to utilities.
But whether the wind farm goes in, he said, will depend on what the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin decides, as it sets parameters for wind farms - including setback from neighboring properties - that will apply throughout Wisconsin, and which cannot be made stricter by local authorities.
"You can't have a patchwork of rules throughout the state," Green said.
A new state law directed the PSC to set the statewide rules, which would guide municipalities, such as towns and villages, in regulating wind farms, said PSC spokeswoman Deborah Erwin.
The rules, when they are adopted, will apply to wind farms such as the one proposed by Wind Capital Group - operations that generate less than 100 megawatts.
Larger projects, such as the recently approved We Energies Glacier Hills Wind Park in the Columbia County towns of Scott and Randolph, require direct approval from the PSC. Smaller projects don't need the commission's approval, but would be subject to local regulations, provided that those regulations comply with the rules that the PSC soon will set.
But George Plenty, chairman of the town of Arlington, said officials in his town hope that an ordinance adopted last spring, requiring wind turbines to be at least 2,640 feet from buildings, still will be in place once the PSC establishes the statewide rules.
That ordinance, Plenty said, was in direct response to the proposed wind farm.
Given the density of housing in the town of Arlington, it's unlikely there would be any place in the town where a turbine could be built that would conform to a 2,640-foot setback.
"But I don't know what will happen to this ordinance when the PSC gets involved," Plenty said.
The pending PSC rules were the reason why the town of Leeds didn't adopt any ordinances regulating the placement of wind turbines, said James Foley, Leeds town chairman.
One of the Leeds town supervisors, Alan Kaltenberg, has leased some of his land for one of the test towers. Foley said Kaltenberg would abstain from voting on any matter related to the regulation of wind turbines.
For some town of Leeds residents, Foley said, a wind farm would offer an opportunity to make money from land that might not be particularly productive for farming.
"All these turbines would have to be sited on a high knoll," he said. "High knolls are usually rocky, and farmers can't farm rocks."
Plenty said he's heard of few landowners in the town of Arlington who would be willing to lease their land for a wind turbine location.
One reason for that: Town of Arlington resident Lori McIlrath, who opposes locating a wind farm in the town, has shared her concerns with area farmers.
McIlrath and her husband, Joel, have organized opposition to the project, she said, mainly because they have visited people who live near We Energies' 88-turbine Blue Sky Green Field wind farm in northeast Fond du Lac County.
McIlrath said she thinks a wind farm would cause health problems such as sleeplessness, reduce property values and create around-the-clock noise in what has been a quiet rural area.
"I ask landowners if it's truly worth whatever they'd get for their land, to do this to the community," she said.
Wisconsin utilities already are required to produce a percentage of their power from renewable resources such as wind or solar power. Those requirements might become even more stringent with a bill, backed by Gov. Jim Doyle, that's pending in the Wisconsin Legislature. One of the provisions of the Clean Energy Jobs Act is a proposal to require utilities to use renewable resources for 20 percent of their power by 2020 and 25 percent by 2025.
Wind farms are likely to become more common in Wisconsin, Green said.
That's why, he said, he has made himself available to the public, at Leeds and Arlington town meetings and at small-group sessions with southern Columbia County residents, to answer questions about the effects of a wind farm.
"It's our job," he said, "to present to the public accurate, scientific information, so they can better understand the facts about wind energy."
January 27 2010
Wisconsin regulators have approved plans to startup company E Wind to build a 30 megawatt wind farm northeaset of the State Capial of Madison at a cost of $60 million dollars. Talks are underway to buy 18 turbines fro Hyundai Heavy Industries, E-wind tells Recharge.
If the deal is finalized, it would represent the largest known US order thus far for South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy.
Wes Slaymaker, who heads a company that provides engineering services for the wind industry and is a partner in E Wind, says the next project step is to negotiate a long-term power purchase agreement with a utility.
“This is our biggest challenge because electricity prices and demand are soft,” he says in a telephone interview. “Utilities are not excited about buying more power at the moment.”
Even so, they must comply with Wisconsin’s renewable portfolio standard that requires publicly-held utilities to produce 10% of their electricity from renewable energy sources by 2015.
Governor Jim Doyle is also calling on lawmakers to pass his proposed Green Energy Jobs Act, which would update the RPS to 25% by 2025.
“I think the bill has a decent chance of getting passed,” says Slaymaker.
Once a power purchase agreement is in place, Slaymaker believes he and two local partners will obtain project financing. One of them owns part of the 1,800 acres where the turbines will be sited near the town of Randolph.
Slaymaker describes the proposed wind farm as a community project because it has local owners and operators, and most of the investment for site preparation and wind project development will stay in the region.
“This type of community wind project, while common in Minnesota, is unique to Wisconsin,” says Slaymaker.
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1/24/10 TRIPLE FEATURE: From open arms to balled fists: Green honeymoon ends once turbines start: Residents realize their lives are changed forever. AND Why are Brown County landowners changing their minds about hosting turbines? AND Wind developers wounds to Wisconsin community have not healed.
SPECIAL TO BROWN COUNTY, WISCONSIN: Towns of Morrison, Holland, Wrightswood, and Glenmore
Brown County Citizens for Responsible Wind Energy [BCCRWE] is a grassroots organization made up of local residents who are concerned about the impacts of Invenergy's Ledge Wind Project proposed for the Towns of Morrison, Holland, Wrightstown and Glenmore.
If you'd like to learn the latest news about the project, or meet some of your concerned neighbors,
Visit the BCCRWE website by CLICKING HERE
The Public Service Commission is now taking public comment on the project, and maintains a docket containing information about the project.
Visit the docket by CLICKING HERE and entering the case number: 9554-CE-100
Leave a comment on the project on the docket by CLICKING HERE
Below is a map showing the noise level predicted for residents in the project. The yellow dots are homes. THe black dots are wind turbine locations. The blue areas indicate predicted noise levels above 50 dbA. The purple areas indicate noise levels of 50dbA.
Unfortunately noise from turbines that are 40 stories tall doesn't stop at the boundries drawn on this map. The setback proposed for this project is 1000 feet from non participating homes.
The World Health Organization recommends night time noise limits of 35dbA or below for healthful sleep. Loss of sustained sleep because of turbine noise is the most common complaint from Wisconsin wind farm residents.
Better Plan, Wisconsin has been following the story of our eastern neighbors on the Island of Vinalhaven who are finding it impossible to live with the noise of the turbines they welcomed with open arms.
Unfortunately it's a story that is being told where ever wind turbines are placed too close to people's homes, including our own state of Wisconsin.
WIND POWER OVERPOWERS ITS NEIGHBORS
Kennebec Journal & Morning Sentinel,
morningsentinel.mainetoday.com
By Tux Turkel
24 January 2010
VINALHAVEN — Cheryl Lindgren was excited when the three wind turbines down the road began turning in November, but within days her excitement turned to disbelief. The sound at her house, a half-mile or so away, wasn’t what she had expected. As she sat reading in her quiet living room, she could detect a repetitive “whump, whump” coming from outside.
“I can feel this sound,” she recalled thinking. “It’s going right through me. I thought, ‘Is this what’s it’s going to be like for the rest of my life?’ ”
Dedicated two months ago with great fanfare, the Fox Islands Wind Project is producing plenty of power, but also a sense of shock among some neighbors.
They say the noise, which varies with wind speed and direction, ranges from mildly annoying to so intrusive that it disturbs their sleep.
They also say they lament losing the subtle quiet they cherished in living in the middle of Penobscot Bay — the muffled crash of surf on the ledges and the whisper of falling snow.
The folks living around North Haven Road aren’t anti-wind activists. Lindgren and her husband, Art, supported the project as members of the local electric co-op.
Now the Lindgrens are discovering what residents in other communities, including Mars Hill and Freedom, have learned: When large wind turbines are erected, some people living near them will find their lives disrupted.
That wasn’t supposed to happen here. Co-op members on Vinalhaven and in neighboring North Haven endorsed the $15 million project as a way to hold down high electric rates and maintain a sustainable community. The developer, backed by the Rockland-based Island Institute, saw it as a model for other offshore towns.
In the wake of the complaints, the developer is taking extraordinary steps to try to lessen the effect. Several modest fixes are under way, and bigger ones are being considered, including some that could sacrifice energy output.
However, the Vinalhaven experience also is being seen as a cautionary tale. Upon invitation, Art Lindgren and other neighbors have spoken at meetings in mainland towns where new wind farms are being proposed.
Meanwhile, wind power opponents are attempting to change the state noise standards to affect which projects are permitted. All this may complicate Maine’s efforts to use its renewable resources to become more energy independent and create an industry around wind power.
In no-man’s land
The Vinalhaven project consists of three 1.5-megawatt turbines. They are a massive presence on a high point of land at the island’s northwest corner, a 10-minute drive from the ferry terminal. Each unit stands 388 feet high, from ground to blade tip.
The ribbon-cutting in November drew more than 400 people and attracted national media attention. Schoolchildren passed out pinwheels. Visiting dignitaries applauded New England’s largest coastal wind project.
The 15 or so property owners within a half-mile of the turbines watched with special interest.
To get state approval for a wind farm, developers must keep sound levels offsite below 45 decibels, less than the background noise in an average household. Fox Islands Wind purchased a home and two vacant properties that were adjacent to the towers. A fourth owner turned down a buyout offer, seeking more money.
However, the Lindgrens and others suddenly found themselves in no-man’s land: Their homes are technically outside the noise zone, but their ears say otherwise.
The Lindgrens built their home 10 years ago next to Seal Cove. They have goats and ducks and heat with wood. After much travel and a career in software development, the couple looked forward to a peaceful retirement. Instead, they now spend much of their time measuring sound levels, comparing notes with neighbors and learning the details of wind power.
Cheryl Lindgren values quiet. On a recent stormy evening, she recounted when she first came here and stood at the shoreline in the snow.
“All I could hear was the sound of snowflakes falling on my jacket,” she said. “That’s not going to happen again.”
‘Unsettling and unpleasant’
On this evening, the Lindgrens were having cake and coffee with three other neighbors who are troubled by turbine noise. They’ve already developed a vocabulary to describe the shifting sounds.
One sound is like sneakers going around in a dryer. Another mimics an industrial motor. There’s a ripping and pulsing of blades cutting through the air, and the rotational “whump, whump, whump” sound.
Another common sound, which was audible on this evening from the Lindgrens’ front porch, resembles a jet plane that’s preparing to land, but never does. That sound was produced by two turbines spinning in a moderate northeast blow that followed the snowstorm. The third turbine was offline for repairs.
“That’s fairly standard,” Cheryl Lindgren said, “and that’s just with two turbines. Factor in the third and it’s unsettling and unpleasant.”
For Ethan Hall, the sound is more than unpleasant.
Hall is a young carpenter who’s building a small homestead on a height of land past the Lindgrens, roughly 3,000 feet from the nearest turbine. The noise was so annoying on some nights, Hall said, that he couldn’t sleep in the passive-solar, straw-bale structure. Now he’s house-sitting in town.
“I find it maddening,” he said. “It’s a rhythmic, pulsing sound that’s impossible to ignore.”
Art Farnham is trying to ignore the noise, although he can clearly hear it inside his mobile home. A lobsterman who lives 1,300 feet from a turbine, Farnham turned down an offer to buy his 6-acre property. He continues working on a new home and shop that will have a turbine almost in its backyard.
“I think they should shut them down,” he said. “We were here before they were.”
Between Hall and the Lindgrens is the home of David and Sally Wylie. They built in the once-quiet cove, and like their neighbors, did much of the work themselves.
“This has been our dream, our life,” Sally Wylie said from their winter home in Rockland.
Set into the snow on the Wylies’ lawn is a tripod and meter that Fox Islands Wind is using to measure sound levels, but that’s little comfort to Sally Wylie, who believes the computer modeling used to approve the project is wrong. The only solution now, she said, is to turn down the turbines to a point that they are quieter, but still produce an acceptable amount of power.
“It really boils down to what the community is going to accept,” she said.
Reducing sound cuts power
The task of trying to find a remedy for the noise complaints has fallen to George Baker, chief executive officer of Fox Islands Wind LLC.
Baker has spent the past two months taking sound measurements, studying computer models and talking to neighbors and the turbine manufacturer, General Electric. He slept one windy night at a vacant house 1,110 feet from two turbines, to experience the sound. He said he could hear the turbines but they weren’t particularly loud and didn’t prevent him from sleeping.
Baker recently e-mailed neighbors to outline his initial plans. Workers will make small modifications to the equipment. They’ll change the turbines’ gearbox ratio, for instance, and close air vents in the nacelles, the housing that covers components. Baker also is looking at adding sound-dampening insulation to the nacelles.
Another idea is to turn down the turbines, essentially slowing the blades’ rotational speed. Sound measurement in decibels is a logarithmic equation. That means cutting the output from 45 decibels — the state standard — to 42 decibels would cut sound volume in half.
The problem, Baker said, is slowing all three turbine blades that much would reduce power output 20 percent. That would translate into electric rates that are 20 percent higher.
Another approach is to turn down the turbines only when the sound is most annoying. Computers can do this, Baker said, but it’s a complicated calculation. He has begun collecting sound and wind speed data and trying to correlate it to what neighbors observe.
“I am hopeful we can figure out how to turn these things down when the sound is most troubling,” he said.
That’s also the hope of the Island Institute in Rockland, a development group that focuses on Maine’s 15 year-round island communities. It sees renewable energy as critical to maintaining sustainable, offshore communities in the 21st century. With Baker serving as the group’s vice president for community wind, the institute is working with residents on Monhegan, as well as Swans Island and neighboring Frenchboro, on Long Island, on turbine plans.
These islands have fewer residents, so they don’t need as much power, according to Philip Conkling, the group’s president. That means smaller systems.
“I don’t think there’s going to be another three-turbine wind farm on the coast of Maine,” Conkling said.
He said it will take careful study to find a solution on Vinalhaven. Hundreds of people stood near the spinning turbines at the ribbon-cutting, he noted, and no one complained.
“But when you live with them day in and day out, it’s a different experience,” he said.
Bill would change standards
A proposed bill in the Legislature would amend current noise standards to include low-frequency sound. These sounds are emitted by wind turbines and blades, but aren’t addressed by the rules, activists say.
“Maine’s noise regulations do not require the measurement of this low-frequency sound,” Steve Thurston, co-chairman of the Citizen’s Task Force on Wind Power, said in an e-mail. “By using the dBA scale only, it appears that turbine noise diminishes to acceptable levels before it reaches homes nearby.”
Complaints from people living near projects in Mars Hill and Freedom show otherwise, the group says. Now the same pattern is emerging on Vinalhaven.
House Speaker Hannah Pingree, who grew up on North Haven, is following the concerns closely. She’s a big supporter of renewable energy, but has come to recognize that the Vinalhaven project is causing real problems.
“I am in a very active learning mode on this subject,” she said.
Pingree doubts the noise bill will get a hearing in this short legislative session, but the state should examine the issue, she said, perhaps through a special task force.
In the meantime, some towns in Maine are enacting ordinances requiring a mile between turbines and homes. After Art Lindgren and Ethan Hall related their experiences in Buckfield earlier this month, residents overwhelmingly passed a six-month moratorium, aimed at a three-turbine proposal on Streaked Mountain.
This trend worries Baker at Fox Islands Wind. A mile setback makes community wind energy unfeasible, he said.
“Do we want to set rules that makes it impossible to do something that’s really good for a community because 10 percent of the people are bothered by it?” Baker asked.
SECOND FEATURE:
Opposition seek moratoriums on farms; Some landowners have reconsidered allowing turbines
SOURCE: Green Bay Press-Gazette, www.greenbaypressgazette.com
By Scott Williams
January 24, 2010
People who don’t want a wind farm in southern Brown County are organizing, and they’re getting help from a group that has stymied similar projects in nearby Calumet County.
Dozens of homeowners and others in the wind farm development site have joined forces under the name Brown County Citizens for Responsible Wind Energy.
The group is urging local officials to impose moratoriums on wind farm construction in an effort to slow or stop Invenergy LLC, a Chicago-based developer planning to erect 100 wind turbines south of Green Bay.
The moratorium approach is credited with blocking wind farm development in Calumet County.
Although the Calumet County opposition group organized before landowners had agreed to allow wind turbines on their property, Invenergy already has signed contracts with many landowners in the Brown County towns of Glenmore, Wrightstown, Morrison and Holland.
But opposition being generated by the newly organized group is prompting some landowners to reconsider their participation in the $300 million Invenergy project.
Wayside Dairy Farm owner Paul Natzke said he and his partners have been impressed by the opposition, and now they are rethinking a deal to allow six Invenergy turbines on their 1,000-acre farm.
“Our biggest concern is splitting the community,” Natzke said. “That’s the last thing we want to do.”
Invenergy spokesman Kevin Parzyck said the company is aware that organized opposition has surfaced in Brown County. Calling some wind farm criticisms “myths,” Parzyck said the company would respond to such concerns during the state licensing process, which includes public hearings.
The developers also will talk individually with property owners who have heard opposition and are having second thoughts about being part of the project, Parzyck said.
“We can put them at ease,” he said. “We are very straightforward and honest with people.”
The developer has supporters in Brown County, too, partly because it is offering property owners at least $7,000 a year to allow one of the wind turbines on their property.
Roland Klug, a participating landowner, is so excited about the project that he has recruited other property owners to get involved.
Referring to opponents’ concerns about health and safety risks, Klug said, “That’s all a lot of baloney.”
Invenergy submitted an application Oct. 28 to the state Public Service Commission for permission to develop the Ledge Wind Energy Project in southern Brown County. The plan calls for 54 wind turbines in Morrison, 22 in Holland, 20 in Wrightstown and four in Glenmore.
With the capacity to generate enough electricity to power about 40,000 homes, it would be the Brown County’s first major commercial wind farm. It also would be larger than any wind farm currently operating in Wisconsin.
Supporters say the project would bring economic development and clean energy to the area, while opponents fear the intrusion and potential health hazards of the 400-foot-tall turbines.
Jon Morehouse, a leading organizer of Brown County Citizens for Responsible Wind Energy, said opposition has grown as more people learn of Invenergy’s plan.
Considering that the developers already have contracts with many landowners, Morehouse said he expects an uphill fight. But he said 100 people are involved in the group.
“It’s growing every day,” he said. “People are starting to see what’s happening.”
Members of Brown County Citizens for Responsible Wind Energy have approached town officials in Morrison and Wrightstown to request wind farm moratoriums.
It is a strategy that worked in Calumet County, where the County Board last year approved a countywide moratorium that has prevented any wind turbines from going up.
Ron Dietrich, spokesman for Calumet County Citizens for Responsible Energy, said a major wind farm likely would be operating in the county if his group had not organized and taken action. Although the success might be only temporary, Dietrich said it has allowed residents to study and debate the merits of wind energy.
“The process has slowed down,” he said, “and people are taking a second look at it.”
Brown County Citizens for Responsible Wind Energy plans a public forum on wind farms at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 18 at Van Abel’s of Hollandtown, 8108 Brown County D, town of Holland. For more information about the group, go to www.bccrwe.com.
THIRD FEATURE:
Note from the BPWI Research Nerd:
Click on the image below to watch a video about the wind farm mentioned in the following story and its proximity to the Horicon Marsh.
Better Plan has added underlined bold type to indicate direct links with interviews and videos featuring people mentioned in this article, for those who would like to know more.
Francis Ferguson is Chariman of the Town of Byron. In this interview, Chairman Ferguson is open about receiving money for hosting a turbine in the project, that his neighbor has repeatedly complained and made "a hell of a stink" about the nosie, and that the turbines sound like a jet plane. From a 2008 interview [Click here to watch video and read transcript]
Q. Do you think -- I guess in your opinion, do is a 1000 feet is a good setback?
Chairman Ferguson: It isn't any too much. Because my tower up here on the hill is a thousand feet from Hickory road here. A guy built a new home there in the woods. And he's made a hell of a stink. He's filed a written complaint and he's really fighting it right now.
Q Is he a thousand feet away?
Chairman Ferguson: Yeah. And he claims it's noisy and it aggravates him.
Q Do you notice any noise here?
Chairman Ferguson: You can hear it.
Q What does it sound like?
Chairman Ferguson: Sounds like a jet plane.
Scroll to the bottom of this post to watch the full interview with Chairman Ferguson
Wind farms cause controversy among community
SOURCE: Green Bay Press-Gazette, www.greenbaypressgazette.com
By Scott Williams
January 24, 2010
BYRON — Looking south from the home his father built, Francis Ferguson can see two generations of energy production in vivid convergence.
Locomotives chugging through this section of Fond du Lac County carry shipments of coal along the Canadian National Railway to be incinerated at nearby electric power plants.
Just beyond the train tracks, enormous wind turbines rotate on the horizon, working to harness a blustery winter day and convert that energy, too, into electricity.Ferguson, who was born here during the Great Depression and now serves as Byron town chairman, is philosophical about the old-style trains crossing through the shadows of a wind farm that sprang up just two years ago.
“It is a change,” he said. “You can’t sit and wait for the future to be the same as the past — it isn’t going to happen.”
Across town, Larry Wunsch stands beneath a 400-foot wind turbine towering over the home that he and his wife bought seven years ago because they wanted to live in the country.
Situated about 500 feet from Wunsch’s property line, the spinning giant casts a flickering shadow at certain times of day. It also occasionally emits a noise that Wunsch likens to a jet airplane.
At least a dozen other turbines dot the surrounding countryside.
Wunsch and his wife, Sharon, have stopped trying to live with the disruptions. They are getting ready to put their home up for sale.
“This is not for me,” he said. “It’s an invasion.”
For Tom Byl and Rose Vanderzwan, wind turbines are not only welcome, they are like home.
The young couple came to Wisconsin nine years ago from their native Netherlands, where wind energy has been part of the culture for generations. When developers needed locations in Fond du Lac County to erect wind turbines, Byl and Vanderzwan were happy to accommodate.
The couple, who have four small children, collect $17,500 a year for permitting three turbines on their Oak Lane Road dairy farm.
Some neighbors opposed to the wind farm are so upset that they no longer speak with Byl and Vanderzwan. But the couple makes no apologies.
“I really like them,” Vanderzwan said of the turbines. “I think they’re beautiful. And I think it’s a good idea to get some cheaper energy.”
Hardly anyone around here, it seems, is lacking in a strong opinion about wind farms, whether favorable or critical. Living on the cutting edge of energy policy reform does not lend itself to feelings of ambivalence.
Long after it began operating south of Fond du Lac with more than 80 wind turbines, the Forward Wind Energy Center divides residents as sharply as it did when the project was announced five years ago.
Opponents of the operations insist that wind turbines are jeopardizing people’s health and destroying the area’s peaceful aesthetics. Supporters, meanwhile, remain equally certain that wind energy is liberating the United States from both air pollution and dependence on foreign oil.
As state leaders push mandates for alternative energy sources, the debate that has absorbed neighbors here could soon reach a growing number of town halls. At least 20 other commercial wind farms are being planned or developed in Manitowoc County, Outagamie County and elsewhere.
One project proposed south of Green Bay in the towns of Glenmore, Morrison, Holland and Wrightstown would include 100 turbines, making it Wisconsin’s largest wind farm. Known as the Ledge Wind Energy Park, it would be built by Invenergy LLC, the same Chicago-based group that developed and operates the Forward project in southern Fond du Lac County and northern Dodge County.
With state public hearings expected later this year on the $300 million Brown County project, opponents are beginning to organize.
Invenergy vice president Bryan Schueler, however, said his company has found support for the project, which he said would be virtually identical to the Forward wind farm.
The company offers landowners compensation — typically $5,000 to $7,000 a year — for allowing a wind turbine on their property.
Schuler said wind farms draw public support not only because of the thousands of dollars paid to landowners, but because of economic activity resulting from the capital investment, construction activity and job creation. Residents also generally take pride in knowing that they are contributing to the growth of a clean energy alternative, he said.
“Every project will have some opposition, as with anything that is new to a community,” he said. “For every opponent, there’s usually many, many more supporters.”
When the Forward project was proposed in the summer of 2004, much of the opposition stemmed from its proximity to the Horicon Marsh, a wildlife refuge known for its populations of geese, herons and other birds. The 32,000-acre marsh is about two miles from the wind turbines.
Despite environmental concerns, the state’s Public Service Commission approved the project in 2005, and the turbines were up and running by 2008 in the towns of Byron, Oakfield, Leroy and Lomira.
The operation has the capacity to generate enough electricity to power some 35,000 homes.
Since the turbines started spinning, the state Department of Natural Resources says it has recorded bird and other wildlife deaths attributed to the wind farm at a higher-than-average rate.
Dave Siebert, director of the DNR’s energy office, said the national average for wind farms is slightly more than two bird deaths annually per wind turbine. As many as 10 deaths per turbine have been recorded at Forward. While his agency is not alarmed about the data, Siebert said officials hope to raise the issue when the Ledge Wind project comes up for regulatory review.
“Every next project, we learn a little bit more,” he said.
For many residents in and around the Forward Wind Energy Center, the biggest concern is how the turbines are affecting their quality of life.
Some residents complain that the spinning turbines are noisy, that they create annoying sunlight flicker, that they disrupt TV reception and that they destroy the area’s appearance.
“I think it’s ugly and noisy,” said Maureen Hanke, who lives in Mayville just west of the wind farm.
Gerry Meyer, a retired Byron postal carrier, is certain that turbines near his property have contributed to sleeplessness, headaches and other health problems for him and his family.
Saying that he turned down Invenergy’s offer of compensation, Meyer said: “I consider it bribe money.”
Others find the wind farm easy to tolerate — and even enjoy.
Alton Rosenkranz, who operates an apple orchard in Brownsville, said turbines positioned about 300 feet from his property generate the slightest “woof, woof, woof” sound. Rosenkranz said the noise does not bother him or his customers. In fact, he suspects the novelty of the wind farm is good for business.
“People come out to look at it,” he said. “And they buy apples.”
Many property owners receive payments of $500 a year from Invenergy if one of their neighbors has allowed a turbine to be erected too close for comfort.
Glenn Kalkhoff Jr., who lives in Byron, said the company also is providing him with free satellite dish service because he complained that turbines were disrupting his TV reception. Kalkhoff said he has no other complaints.
“You get a little whooshing sound once in a while,” he said. “That doesn’t bother me.”
Homeowners who have permitted Invenergy onto their property said the company is easy to work with and that the compensation has helped their families endure tough economic times.
But supporting the developers also has exacted a price for some in the form of lost friendships with wind farm opponents.
Byron farmer Lyle Hefter said he gets $10,000 a year for allowing two turbines on his dairy farm. He also received another payment — he will not say how much — to lease seven acres for a substation where Invenergy employees work.
Each of the turbines uses about one-third of an acre. Hefter said he has no problem working around the obstacles, and whatever noise they generate normally is drowned out by farm equipment, passing trains or other outdoor sounds.
“You don’t even know they’re here,” he said.
An organized group of opponents, known as Horicon Marsh Advocates, fought diligently to block the Forward project. The group no longer is active, but individual members remain vocal about their opposition.
Some opponents have made videos and kept other records to document what they consider the intrusive and unhealthy effects of living near a wind farm.
Curt Kindschuh, a former leader of the opposition group, said lingering disagreement has created lasting ill will among friends and neighbors. Kindschuh said he no longer is on speaking terms with a cousin who joined other landowners in welcoming Invenergy into the community.
Even at a family funeral long after the wind farm was approved, Kindschuh said, he did not share a word with his cousin.
“That’s the sad part,” he said. “There’s so many people out here with so many hard feelings.”
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