8/4/08 Compare and Contrast! A Day in the Life of a wind developer and a day in the life of a family living in a wind farm
WONDER WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE A WIND DEVELOPER?
We found this description of 'a day in the life of an assistant wind developer' on a career information website. (Click here to read it at the source)
We follow it with a description of a day in the life of a family living with what wind developers leave behind.
8:00 a.m. : After waking up in the Holiday
Inn in a remote part of Iowa, you get in your rented SUV and drive into
town to have a breakfast meeting at the local diner with the mayor.
Your development team has optioned a hilltop in the area for developing
a windpower facility, and you are now in the process of negotiating a
payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT agreement) with the town. It's probably
going to end up being a new fire truck, school playground, and the new
access road you will be constructing anyway up to your site. You are
flying solo on this meeting, confirming the outline of the agreement
with the mayor and putting in some time to continuing to build this
crucial relationship.
12:00 p.m. Back at the hotel, you participate in a conference call with the lead developer and engineers back in the home office. Your team is working up a cost estimate for the transmission system interconnect, in preparation for negotiating the price with the local utility. By law, utilities have to allow independent generators like your company to hook up to the grid, but there's little to prevent them from exacting a high price for doing so. The engineers are preparing some exhibits to counter the anticipated argument that the wind turbines will affect local voltage stability.
1:30 p.m. : Checking your email, you find
that one of the turbine manufacturers has responded to your company's
request-for-proposal (RFP) for the 20 turbines plus engineering,
procurement, and construction services. You'll plug their information
into the bid comparison spreadsheet you created when you're back in the
office tomorrow. On your voicemail is an "all clear" message from the
subcontractor who is conducting the archaeological study of the
site--he was tasked with verifying that there are no remains of
historical structures anywhere on the land (which would likely cause
the town to deny a building permit).
3:00 p.m. : On your two-hour-long drive to the airport to fly home, you stop at another farmer's home in the next town over. He had contacted your company when he heard that you were planning on building down the road, saying he was interested in showing someone his windy site. You walk around his land together, taking note of flagged trees (permanently bent over at an angle as a result of strong, uni-directional winds). While this is typically a symptom of a good wind resource, there's little conclusion anyone can draw until you install a met data tower and measure actual windspeeds for a year. The wind today feels very gusty, which could be a bad sign--too much turbulence in the local wind pattern causes wear and tear on turbines, resulting in high maintenance costs and shorter equipment life. You tell him you'll bring up the idea of looking more carefully at his site with your team at home.
7:30 p.m. : On the plane ride back to your home base, you do a little reading. Your department is working on formalizing the development process for wind plants in order to save time and money. The idea is to structure the process with a set sequence of activities from low-cost to high-cost and high-level fatal flaw checks to detailed design activities; after each major step in the process, a development oversight committee would decide whether to proceed or not. You read through the draft list to see if there's anything you can add, but it seems very thorough.
WONDER WHAT IT'S LIKE TO LIVE IN A WIND FARM AGAINST YOUR WILL? Here's a description of a day in the life of a family living with what wind developers leave behind. It's a recent entry from a noise log kept by a family in Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin.
July 6 2008 – 7:30 AM Wind S very low. I can hear turbines 4, 6 & 73 about equally from the back of our property Turbine 73 therefore would be over ½ mile or about 2940’ from me and #6 is just under ¾ of a mile from the back of our property. I have a small hand held sound level indicator and got a reading of 40db and at the moment the sound is fairly quiet but annoying.
7:50 AM I am reading a map at the dining room table and I can hear the turbines quite easily. The kitchen door is open. Again this is quite an intrusion on our normal life style and on our health.
8:00AM I can hear #73 while at the computer with music playing at the sound level of 30 on the computer. Turbine # 73 is 2480’ away. Sound audible in a well constructed, well insulated home should not be permitted by our government leaders including town, county, state and the PSC. I used to live in a peaceful rural area. Now thanks to the leaders we trusted we live in an industrial park type setting except we never moved. We were intruded upon. I doubt that a city planner would allow an industrial park to move into a residential area. My oldest son (age 33) just commented that at 2:00 AM he was going to “Have me call my legislator friends. They (turbines) were the loudest I have heard them”.
9:40 AM Turbine # 4 is fighting to see if it can rip the sky apart. It is very loud. Did you ever had to vomit but nothing came out but retching sound? You got the picture of what it is like at the moment.
5:10PM S wind. I filmed # 4 & 6. They were loud and I could hear # 73.
6:55 PM Wind SW. The turbines are now turned a little SW from where they were 45 minutes ago. Now they are louder. The jet flying over loud sound with a pulse added. It is sickening.
11:30 PM. Turbine 73 is the loudest. Then #4. Then #6. Thumping and jet sound.
(Download the entire noise log by clicking here)
The BPRC Research Nerd
8/3/08 BELIEVE IT OR NOT: What happens when Wind Developers tell Tazewell County board members to ignore the Attorney General?
BELIEVE IT OR NOT!
In several parts of Wisconsin questions are already being raised and about troubling ties between wind developers and elected officials. Wisconsin is not alone. There are questions being raised all over the country. It's a common practice for wind developers to start by getting very friendly with town and county board members before they go into the rest of the community. It's common for wind developers to offer board members lucrative contracts to host turbines long before any ordinances are written to protect the residents.
The Attorney General of New York State has begun an investigation into the questionable practices of wind developers and certain elected officials -including the use of eminent domain. And according to the following story, Illinois may not be far behind. Once wind developers have the elected officials in their pockets and their foot in the door-- anything can happen. Including ignoring the law.
County ignores state's attorney's suggestion
Tazewell County Board members approved the expansion of a
tax-free enterprise zone to benefit a wind power company, despite the
county’s top law enforcement official telling them to wait.
Tazewell County State’s Attorney Stuart Umholtz said at the board meeting Wednesday night that he has asked Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan to deliver an opinion on the enterprise zone’s expansion.
A company called Horizon Wind Energy has requested that Tazewell County and the City of Pekin expand their enterprise zone by providing a connecting strip 24 miles long and 3 feet wide. The strip would extend from the existing enterprise zone out to the southern-most area of Tazewell county and connect to 38 wind turbine sites.
Umholtz asked board members to at least wait until Madigan issues an opinion before recognizing the 3-foot strip as contiguous. New enterprise zones cannot be created and the expansion of an existing one must be contiguous.
“Respect the rule of law,” Umholtz told board members. He said that during his career as state’s attorney, he has never before delivered a memorandum to board members advising them that they are doing something wrong.
Horizon Director of Development Bill Whitlock addressed the board Wednesday night in response to Umholtz’s advice. “It would have an impact on the wind farm,” Whitlock said, when a board member asked what would happen if the enterprise zone was not expanded for Horizon. “It would have a serious, negative impact on the project.”
Whitlock later addressed the board, saying that numerous enterprise zones have been expanded in a similar way throughout the state. “I don’t see why you need to wait for the attorney general to rule on this one,” he said.
Board member Russell Crawford motioned that the board table the issue until they receive Madigan’s opinion. That motion failed.
Businesses that are built within the enterprise zone are allowed a 100 percent property tax abatement for five years. They also get a sales tax break from the state on materials purchased in the state of Illinois for the project.
Horizon has given the county a “side letter,” stating that they will not seek abatement from property taxes, nor will they seek abatement from permit fees. In exchange for the expansion of the enterprise zone, Horizon will give the county $230,00 and Pekin will get $150,000.
Ultimately, a majority of the board members voted to approve the ordinance regarding the expansion of the enterprise zone, and approved an intergovernmental agreement with Pekin to do so. The board also voted to approve the side letter concerning Horizon’s stance on property tax abatement and permit fees.
Board members Crawford, Michael Godar, Jan Donahue, and Michael Harris voted against the three motions.
As Crawford exited the meeting, he apologized to Umholtz. “The arrogance of this county board is at a level of un-acceptance,” he said as he left the building.
Whitlaock told a reporter that Horizon still must meet a number of conditions required by the county, before applying for special use permits for the project.
By Nick Vogel
Times Staff Writer
NOTE FROM THE BPRC RESEARCH NERD: We've been following the story of a family's lawsuit against a wind farm because of turbine noise. They're gone back to court. Here is a July 2008 video update. What this family has to say about the noise from turbines in the fall and winter when the winds are blowing hard enough to generate electricity is echoed by families who have contacted us from Fond Du Lac county in our own state. Until the wind developers and elected officials take people's welfare into consideration when siting industrial turbines, these stories will continue to multiply.
8/2/08 The GREAT Evansville Observer lets us know what's going on with the wind ordinance in the Town of Union
What goes on in this building and how will it affect every resident of Union Township? The great Evansville Observer lets us know..,Web link: http://evansvilleobserver.blogspot.com/2008/07/tow...
There was some discussion that the evidence listed in the study committee that is cited in the ordinance would lead to a set back greater than 1/2 mile, or more precisely .625 miles. The study committee appeared to weigh the evidence and then "round down". This would not create any margin of safety. The decison was not made on what the set back should be, but whatever it is, the evidence cited will be most defensible, strong, and effective, if it matches the ordinance language.
The other discussion that took some time was the enforceability of the ordinance. If in fact, the committee envisions little ability to enforce the ordinance by forceful removal, it would be logical to add some distance to the set back, in light of the fact that sound modeling prior to erection of the turbines is fraught with error. The set back provisions are the only remaining element in the ordinance that can compensate for the frailty of the current technology that models sound.
The actual impact of the sound on humans was discussed. In some literature this impact is called "annoyance" but the actual impact may vary between different people at the same sound levels. One person may suffer anxiety, and the other some other element of a broad list of symptoms. The actual sound levels that are acceptable will be listed in the ordinance.
Finally the question of improving technology was addressed. The question of how to fashion an ordinance that would be able to address a new model of wind turbine in the future---without having to rewrite the one being drafted and thus incurring the huge expense of the drafting processing.
8/1/08 Town of Wilton, Monroe County Adopts Half Mile Set Back!
Wisconsin's town of Wilton in beautiful Monroe County has joined other townships in our great state (including Magnolia!) in adopting a wind ordinance that provides a minimum safe set back of 2640 feet from homes, churches, schools, nursing homes and other inhabited structures. (Click here to download a copy of the ordinance)
Hats off from Better Plan, Rock County to the Wilton Town Board for protecting the health and safety of their residents by adopting this ordinance!
