NOTE FROM THE BPWI RESEARCH NERD: At a recent Wind Siting Council meeting Vinalhaven was touted as an example of a "community" wind project that was working.

Residents now trying to live with "community" turbine noise have a different view.

 

Noise controversy over Vinalhaven wind turbines heats up

SOURCE: The Free Press, freepressonline.com

 August 12, 2010

Vinalhaven sits 15 miles off the coast and just over an hour’s ferry ride from Rockland, but it has an old-fashioned sense of community rare on the mainland these days. Every driver waves as they pass and it’s common for an islander to leave the keys in the truck in case anyone needs to borrow it.

It was with that sense of community that the islanders welcomed the three wind turbines to Vinalhaven last year. Not only did the turbines promise reliable electrical service, which was something long-term residents did not take for granted, but wind power would lower electric rates for everyone.

Islanders turned out in strength last November to see the turbines started up, watch the 123-foot-long blades sweep the air and watch grade-school children do a windmill dance to the tune of “I’m a Little Tea-Pot.”

Even with some initial start-up glitches, rates have gone down when averaged across the year (the estimated average rate is now five to six cents per kilowatt hour, with variations from month to month, according to Fox Island Electric Cooperative; the national average rate was 11.36 cents per kilowatt hour in 2008).

Most of the 1,200 or so residents on Vinalhaven approve of the turbines. But within days of start-up a handful of Vinalhaven residents who lived within a mile of the wind turbines on the North Haven Road reported noise problems.

Nine months later, people have taken sides. Fingers are being pointed. Frustration levels are rising. There are rumblings about complainers and how they should move off the island if they don’t like it. There are accusations of misinformation and biased noise data collection.

Jeanne Bineau-Ames, whose house is near the swimming quarry in the middle of the island, summed it up.

“It’s an island. We are only as strong as the smallest link. We have to work as a community,” she said. Bineau-Ames lives far enough from the wind turbines not to hear them, has a relative on the board of the electric cooperative who strongly favors them, and sympathizes with those affected by the noise.

“I hate to see this go to mistrust and anxiety,” she said. “We have to work at this. We have to work this out.”

Sound Effects

Bothersome noise related to wind turbines is hardly new.

“Wind turbine noise is becoming a bigger issue in the U.S.,” said Patrick Moriarty, an aeronautical engineer for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado. NREL belongs to the U.S. Department of Energy and is the primary research and development site for energy efficiency and renewable energy, including wind power. Moriarty is a senior engineer at the lab.

“It’s been a big issue in Europe for a while because their wind farms have been up longer and they are in more densely populated areas,” Moriarty said.

In Maine, the Mars Hill wind farm in Aroostook County and the turbines in Freedom in Waldo County have elicited similar complaints by nearby residents who say the repetitive whump, whump, whump sound of the blades turning causes sleeplessness and anxiety. Some research suggests those symptoms could be related to low-frequency sound waves that impact people as a pressure wave.

Sound seems simple enough: you hear it or you don’t; it’s audible or it isn’t. It turns out that sound is far from simple: not only can a noise that is alarmingly loud to one person be a minor note to another, but some people appear to be affected by low-frequency sound-the bass notes-while others aren’t. And the really low frequency sounds (below 20 hertz), the inaudible sound waves, which elephants and whales use to communicate over long distances, can travel hundreds of miles without fading. It’s this silent sound that may make birds and beasts aware of earthquakes and tsunamis ahead of any apparent danger, and it may be the cause of a laundry list of human complaints that include sleeplessness, anxiety, exhaustion and depression.

Or it may not be. The jury is out.

Dora Anne Mills, the medical doctor for the state of Maine, reviewed the medical and acoustics research on wind turbine noise and issued a 2009 report stating that the current research on health effects was inconclusive. Mills concluded there was insufficient evidence to change state noise compliance standards.

But the thing to understand, said Moriarty, is that the sound coming from the wind turbines is broadband noise; that is, it has all frequencies mixed together. It appears not to be the volume of the turbines, but the rythmic nature of the noise, the whomp, whomp or whoosh, whoosh, whoosh-what Moriarity refers to as the modulation-that is problematic, but no one is really sure.

“Noise ordinances are now based on amplitude [volume],” said Moriarty. “Some people think modulation noise [repetitive, rhythmic noise] could be more annoying.”

“It’s an open question if noise regulations should be adjusted for modulation. It’s at the bleeding edge of research at the moment and it’s where technology and sociology overlap,” said Moriarty.

That’s cold comfort to some residents who live close to the wind turbines.

Britta Lindgren lives about a half mile down the Northhaven Road from the turbines.

“Initially, the animals went off their feed when the turbines started up. During the first few days after they started, I found an eider duck hiding in the corner of the porch, cowering. You never see eider ducks out of the cove. I’ve never seen that. During the first two or three weeks, it was really loud.”

“The animals don’t do that now. Truthfully, most of the time it’s not a problem,” said Lindgren, referring to the volume. “There are trees between us and the sound varies in intensity. It’s a whomp, whomp, whomp sound.”

They may not be so loud, but the sound pulses rythmically. Lindgren believes the repetitive noise is what is creating sleep problems in her family and, she says, it isn’t something that you just get used to, as some islanders have suggested.

“It feels like a constant wearing down,” she said. “It’s like when you have an itch. It’s nothing to scratch it, but then it keeps itching and you keep scratching and before you know it you have a hard, raw spot. It hurts. You’re always aware of it.”

A half mile in the other direction, Erin Creelman and her family are more acutely aware of the wind turbines. Their house sits on high ground across from them and all but one of the family members are having problems sleeping.

“We left our storm windows in this summer, and we have thermal panes,” said Creelman. “We didn’t put in the screens. We have a well-insulated house with wood panels and sheetrock. We have blown-in fiberglass. You can still hear them. You can feel them, really. It’s a pressure thing more than a noise. It’s like a whomp, whomp, whomp.”

Creelman said she supported construction of the windmills and doesn’t want them taken down; she wants the sound issues solved.

Lindgren agreed, but shook her head at the possibility of a solution.

“It’s gotten quite divisive,” said Lindgren. “How do you deal with that? I don’t know.”

Sally Wylie, another neighbor of the wind farm who lives less than a mile away from the turbines, didn’t parse her words. She was thoroughly frustrated.

“They said it would sound like the humming of a refrigerator. That didn’t seem so bad,” said Wylie.

But Wylie said it isn’t like a refrigerator.

“It sounds like a jetport,” said Wylie, referring to the noise in the windy winter months. “It’s unbelievable. It vibrates right through the house. It ricochets off the neighbors and comes back. It echoes.”

The Neighbors & The Man Behind the Machines

“There are about 15 to 20 year-round houses located within three quarters of a mile of the turbines,” said George Baker, who is the CEO of Fox Island Wind, a private enterprise that is a subsidiary of the Fox Island Electric Cooperative (FIEC) and that was formed to allow the wind turbines to be built.

Notably, the wind turbines have overwhelming support from Vinalhaven residents; only a handful of people are affected by the noise.

“I live with 4 a.m. lobster boats,” said Donna Payne, who owns the Payne Homestead bed-and-breakfast in town. “These are the sounds of people going to work. That’s what it takes to live on an island.”

The wind turbines can’t be heard in town.

“What noise?” said Pete Gasperini, when asked what he thought about the wind turbine noise. “We love them.”

Carla Harris, who sat next to Gasperini at a public forum, agreed.

“We’ve gone up close to hear them and we’ve gone further away,” said Harris. “This is not unbearable noise. It’s like ambient sound.”

Annette Philbrook also agreed.

“The old power plant made ten times more noise than these,” said Philbrook.

Nans Case, a 20-year resident of Vinalhaven who lives in town, said she’s a fan of the lower electric rates.

“My rates have gone down 25 to 30 percent,” said Case. “That’s something for someone on a fixed income.”

But those who are bothered are really bothered. Some of those who live close to the turbines sought legal advice, citing bad faith on the part of Fox Island Wind in adhering to a tolerable noise level and in not addressing their concerns as a serious community issue.

Wylie is one of the neighbors who became vocal about the need to address the noise problem.

“We were big supporters of the project, but we were told the ambient noise would mask the sound of the turbines, so when the turbines were turned on, I was completely in shock,” said Wylie. “I called George Baker and said, please, can you turn them down?”

“He said ‘I can’t do that. We have to study the sound

issue,’ ” said Wylie, who thought the impacts of the nearby neighbors were part of the equation for how the turbines should operate.

“We believed what they told us,” said Wylie.

Now she thinks Fox Island Wind considers the neighbors a nuisance.

“We were totally naive,” she said.

Wylie and others bothered by the turbine noise formed Fox Island Wind Neighbors (FIWN) and launched a website to share information.

“During the first two and a half months after the start-up, I spent hours every week talking to the neighbors,” said Baker, who in addition to being the face of Fox Island Wind is a professor at Harvard Business School who has been on an extended leave of absence so he could serve as the vice president of Community Wind at the Island Institute in Rockland.

“I gave them a whole bunch of detailed financial information and technical information,” said Baker. “Probably stuff I shouldn’t have given. I told them I wasn’t talking to my lawyers, because I knew if I did, my lawyers would say: ‘Don’t talk to them.’ I didn’t want it to be like that.”

“I did tell them if they retained a lawyer, I’d have to talk to my lawyers and I knew what they would say,” said Baker. Fox Island Wind’s lawyers said what Baker expected: stop talking to the neighbors who retained legal counsel.

“There is no lawsuit. I desperately hope there isn’t one. but we got into that lawyer thing and I hate it,” said Baker. “So, no, I won’t talk to them.”

Wylie sees it differently. She says there is no intention to sue, nor was there, ever.

“We needed legal advice. Our lawyer advised us to keep working with the DEP and the community,” she said. “To keep talking.”

“There’s an ethical question here,” said Wylie. “Do you sacrifice the small part of the population or just focus on what the majority wants? Why didn’t they just say, ‘Guess what? This isn’t really working. This is a lot louder than we thought and it’s not a good thing.’?”

“We need to make it work,” she said. “We’re a community. We have a problem, but we’re part of the community package. It’s not like you can throw us out with the laundry.”

Baker, whose unbounded enthusiasm for the Fox Island Wind project comes across without restraint, reined in when it came to talking about the noise controversy.

“I can’t tell you how frustrated I am. I have an enormous stake in this. I’m not making a dime on this project, I hope that is clear,” said Baker, who does not get a salary for being CEO of Fox Island Wind. Baker’s Harvard Business School scholarship recently focused on negotiating and contracts that are built on trust and secured by the reputation of those involved, not on legal enforcement.

“I care deeply about getting this issue resolved, with community involvement,” Baker said. “My reputation is at stake.”

Compliance with State Sound Standards

The state of Maine has noise compliance standards that are pretty straightforward for windmills. When it comes to frequencies and decibels, they take their measurements from the middle range, with attempts to correct for the low-frequency part of the range.

Under Maine state law (Title 38, Sec. 343), wind turbines sited in a quiet location like Vinalhaven cannot operate any higher than 45 decibels at the property line of abutting landowners. Communities like Vinalhaven can adopt more restrictive local ordinances. Vinalhaven had a more restrictive noise ordinance, but voted it out in favor of the state standards.

“Sound is measured between May 1 and August 31, during the inversion period,” said Becky Blais of the Maine Department of Environmental Protection. Blais monitors compliance for the Fox Island Wind site. Inversion is the term for when there is wind aloft and it is calm near the ground. The premise is that sound will carry farther during the summer inversion period; though, on the island, wind blows much harder in the winter.

“All we are measuring is state compliance,” said Blais. The DEP asks Fox Island Wind to collect data using a DEP- approved method. That raw data and initial analysis is sent to DEP for further checking of accuracy and analysis. Complaints from neighbors, with specific time frames attached to the complaints so they can be correlated to sound collection data, also go into the mix for analysis.

The state, in essence, is measuring volume using a standard approach used by federal agencies for measuring industrial noise. They are not measuring low frequencies, which tend to travel farther and in lots of directions. Higher frequencies, in contrast, tend to travel in one direction for much shorter distances.

Fox Island Wind Neighbors takes issue with the state compliance standards of 45 decibels at the property line of an abutting property. They think it should be lower. Even so, FIWN wanted to determine for themselves if the turbines complied with existing state sound standards, so they took the intiative to collect their own sound data from an abutting property, starting this past April. It’s a nonscientific study, but it does indicate that the turbines routinely exceed 45 decibels. FIWN shared their information with the Maine DEP in an effort to bolster their position that the turbines are louder than they should be.

Several sound studies have been done on Vinalhaven or are in the process of being conducted.

Study #1: Turning the Turbines Down

The Noise Reduction Operations (NRO) studies, which were undertaken at the request of Fox Island Wind last spring, included randomly turning down the turbines to see if there was any effect on nearby residents. Only nine participants submitted logbooks noting when they heard turbine noise and how they felt; but 200 responses came from those people.

Ben Hoen of the Berkeley Naitonal Laboratory at the Department of Energy was the principal researcher.

Hoen said the small sample size was, to some extent, offset by the number of responses received.

“There is no silver bullet when it comes to a solution here. It’s all shades of grey,” said Hoen. What the study did do was indicate that the complaints of sound effects, which were recorded with a date and a time, were correlated with wind speeds at the wind turbine site and at a buoy 10-15 miles away.

“The study method worked,” said Hoen. “We hope to come back a second time. Ideally, you want every single person to participate.”

Study #2: Cancelling Out the Noise

Conquest Innovations, an acoustics consulting firm based in Washington state, approached Baker of Fox Island Wind to see if they could set up an experimental study to attempt to fine-tune existing technology so it would work to cancel out the sound of the wind turbines.

Baker secured a $12,000 matching grant from the Maine Technology Institute to kick off the experiment to explore the use of noise-cancellation technology on wind turbine sound.

“We’ve been looking at the full sound spectrum, with the focus below 250 hertz,” said Steven Bradbury of Conquest Innovations. Active Noise Cancellation is based on recognized principles. Bose has used it in its noise-cancellation headphones and Honda has used it inside the cabin of some of its models to cancel out engine noise.

Bradbury explained how noise cancellation works.

“You ever been out on a boat? You know when two boat wakes come from two different directions… say, each wave is six inches high. When the crest of the two waves meet, they double and the peak is about 12 inches high. Now take the same two waves, but instead of the crest of one wave hitting the crest of an oncoming wave, it hits the trough.”

Anyone who has crossed to Vinalhaven has seen it. When the crest of one wave hits the trough of an oncoming wave, the water briefly flattens out. The waves essentially cancel each other out, creating a momentary calm.

Sound waves are not exactly like water waves.

“But this is a great way to visualize what we are trying to do,” said Bradbury.

Lower-frequency sound waves have crests that are farther apart than high-frequency waves; simply, they are less frequent. Think of the sound of the bass on the subwoofers coming out of a car passing on the road in the summer, with the music turned up high. The low-frequency sound comes right through the walls. It goes in all directions; the thumpa, thumpa, thumpa of the bass, until someone says out loud, “Jeez, can’t that kid turn that down?”

The crests of the low-frequency waves are farther apart, thus giving Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) technology room to emit a sound that will flatten the wave. To cancel out three windmills will take three carefully calibrated speakers that are programmed to respond. The result: no more thumpa, thumpa, thumpa. ANC doesn’t mask the sound wave; it meets it and gives the thumpa right back to it.

“We’re pretty excited about this,” said Bradbury. “The principles of active noise cancellation are proven. We know it works.”

According to Bradbury, the direction and speed of the wind shouldn’t make much difference in the effectiveness of noise cancellation.

“What isn’t clear is whether the sound that is bothering people is just low frequency,” said Bradbury. Noise cancellation won’t work on high-frequency sound as effectively: the sound waves are too close together to flatten out across large areas. They are also directional and don’t go through house walls as effectively as low-frequency sound.

So, what happens if the bothersome noise is partially low-frequency and partially high-frequency sound waves? Or even a resonance effect created by extremely low frequency sounds essentially shaking the walls of a house and creating new sounds.

“It may not work,” said Bradbury. It won’t take much longer to find out. The sound data has been analyzed, a sound profile is being created, and Bradbury said a bench-top demo model will be ready in under two months.

Study #3: The Colorado Department of Energy Lab

On March 1 of this year, Baker requested that the National Research Energy Lab come out to Vinalhaven because he thought the lab could help FIW better understand the sound issues. NREL agreed and committed an initial $30,000 to pay for the studies.

Moriarty of the NREL/DOE lab in Colorado and Ben Hoen of the Berkeley DOE lab in California have been looking into the effects of the wind turbines and trying to tie them to specific sound signatures. The data from the Noise Reduction Operation are their starting points, but they got a more complete assessment of impacts than the survey done by Fox Island Wind, said Moriarty.

“The idea was to be independent from Fox Island Wind and to maintain objectivity, ” he said. “Of course, we wouldn’t identify the people who spoke to us.”

Moriarty stressed, again, that the turbines create broad- band noise across low to high frequencies.

“The noise is definitely related to speed. The dominant noise comes from the blades. The faster they spin, the louder they are, but the faster they spin, the more electricity they produce,” said Moriarty, noting there will be a trade-off between reduced noise and electricity generation.

What NREL is looking for is specific symptoms or noise irritation (sleeplessness, irritation from loudness, etc.) at specific times, so they can tie them to the sound data. The NREL team plans to correlate that social data with a variety of other factors, including wind speed, turbine volume, humidity, inversions, and modulation.

What they found in their initial data collection on Vinalhaven was that noise annoyance didn’t necessarily correlate with proximity to the turbines.

“There may be lots of sociological factors, from not wanting to be perceived as a bad guy in the community, to some people working away from home during the day while others are at home gardening. I think that was a big factor,” said Moriarty.

Some other research questions have come up. How does proximity to the ocean, where the atmosphere almost traps the noise, come into play? Another is the base rock the turbines are built on top of.

“One question that came up at Vinalhaven is that the turbines are connected to granite. That’s not very common anywhere in the world. It’s a solid connection and it may be a more efficient transmitter of noise. Here in Colorado, we have the exact same turbine that is on Vinalhaven. You can hardly hear it. But the soil is very different here.”

The next step will be to break down the sound signature and try to isolate the cause of the noise that annoys people at specific times.

“Is it the blades, the rotor? Is the reduced noise operation working the way it should? That’s what we’ll be looking at,” said Moriarty. “Then we’ll brainstorm mitigation potential, and costs and effectiveness. We may recommend reducing speed; even more expensive is a new blade design. They may be able to reduce the operation so much and pay so much more for electric. Then we present it back to the community: Here’s what we found. It’s your island. What would you like to do?”

But what about the sounds that are so low they can’t be heard? Called infrasound, the super low frequency sounds that register below 20 hertz.

Moriarty launched into a cautionary tale. A large experimental windmill was built in Boone, North Carolina, in the 1970s, with the wind at its back in order to maximize energy generation. But the low-frequency noise created pressure waves that were amplified by a number of factors.

“It created a pressure pulse low enough that you couldn’t hear it, but it was similar to the resonance frequency of houses and the sound wave shook the houses and increased the amplitude. Body cavities have a similar resonance frequency, too, so people were getting seasick and dishes were falling off the walls.”

“That’s the number-one reason wind turbines are now designed to work upwind. Infrasound is much less of an issue. Recent measurements on infrasound of GE turbines on Vinalhaven found there isn’t much infrasound coming from those turbines and they satisfy national standards,” he said.

Moriarty said that everything he has seen on infrasound seems to indicate that the noise-related problems are not due to infrasound.

But noise problems are real and the industry is paying attention.

“Sound is a focus across the wind industry,” said Melissa Rocker, the global communications manager for General Electric, who manufactured the wind turbines on Vinalhaven.

“We’ve been talking to Fox Island Wind since last November on how to reduce noise,” said Rocker.

“Every site is unique, with different geographic conditions, weather conditions and ambient sound levels,” she said. “GE is working on various technologies….When those technologies are ready, Fox Island would be a strong candidate for testing.”

The Sculptor at the End of the Lane: Kitty Wales

Fred Granger, who works at a small quarry cutting granite for countertops and benches using a diamond-bit granite saw, hasn’t been drawn into the conflict or paid much attention to the studies.

“I love them,” he said of the wind turbines. He works in the shadow of the windmill blades and the sound of his granite saw is loud enough to drown out any turbine noise.

“They’re beautiful machines that take air and make electricity,” he said. “But I don’t live on the island.”

And then he walked past the numbered blocks of fine-grained granite to the edge of the North Haven Road and pointed down a long lane bordered by hay-scented fern and bayberry bushes.

“There’s a sculptor lives down there,” he said. “Close enough, but a little further away than the rest. She might be one to talk to. I don’t know what she thinks of them. I don’t know that she’s been asked.”

I started walking down the sunny lane, breathing in the summer island scent of sweet fern, hay-scented fern and wild roses. Jim Cogswell was clearing brush on the side of the lane a quarter mile in and stopped for a chat. Cogswell lives on the Peaquot Road on the other side of the island.

“What do I think of them? Anything to get us to use less oil from the Arabs, I’m for them,” said Cogswell. “It’s funny, though. You can hear them from farther away than you can when you are right up close to them.”

The sculptor at the end of the mile-long lane turned out to be Kitty Wales, who is on the island for five months. It’s where she gets her sculpting work done; the rest of the year she teaches in Boston.

No one had asked her what she thought.

“The sound varies wildly,” said Wales. “Some days I can’t hear it at all. Other days it’s this engine sound, whomp, whomp, and a rattling sound on a really bad day. Sometimes there is this low vibration. But I’m three quarters to a mile away and it’s only when we are in the lee of the wind that I hear it.”

“It’s basically too close to residential, too close to homes…and it’s done. For me, it’s tolerable. I don’t want it to affect my work, so I put it out of my mind as much as I can. I don’t think they will be able to make it quieter, but they seem to be trying.”

“Have you gone up the lane, with the pristine look of the bayberries and the hay-scented fern and there they are?” asked Wales. “Rising up in front of you? They are so beautiful. As a sculptor, I think they’re amazingly cool.”

Second Feature:

State probing officials at Cape: Misconduct alleged in wind development

 SOURCE Watertown Daily Times, www.watertowndailytimes.com

August 14, 2010

By Brian Kelly, Times Staff Writer,

CAPE VINCENT — The state attorney general’s office is investigating allegations of misconduct by “certain” town officials in connection with the development of wind farms.

John T. Milgrim, spokesman for the attorney general, confirmed that a letter was sent to the town and its attorney Friday afternoon informing them an investigation had been launched.

Mr. Milgrim also confirmed that two senior members of Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo’s staff, Deputy Chief of Staff John B. Howard and Henry M. Greenberg, executive division counsel, were in Cape Vincent about two weeks ago conducting interviews of “parties interested in wind power.”

Mr. Milgrim declined comment on details of the investigation, including what prompted it or which town officials may be its focus.

According to the letter, obtained by the Times, the attorney general has told the town it must preserve all town documents, including those of the Town Council and Planning Board, and the town is not to delete or purge any records until the investigation is complete.

The attorney general’s office is specifically requesting information about any present, past or future wind farm development or siting of the farms, as well as all information regarding wind turbines, wind power and related facilities or wind power projects.

The office wants all information about wind farm development compiled since Jan. 1, 2005, “whether considered, planned, attempted or completed, including, but not limited to permitting, licensing, construction and energy production.”

By Aug. 28, the attorney general’s office wants:

■ All documents relating to town action on wind farm development, including, but not limited to, board minutes, board packages, resolutions, voting records, communications, permits, applications and licenses.

■ All communications between or among town officials and any company engaged in wind farm development.

■ All documents concerning any financial relationship between a town official, or their relatives, and a company engaged in wind farm development, including, but not limited to, any financial disclosures filed with the town and any board minutes reflecting any such disclosures.

The attorney general’s office is asking that town Supervisor Urban C. Hirschey and Planning Board Chairman Richard J. Edsall, as well as members of the Town Council and Planning Board, be made available for interviews. The office also wants to talk to anyone else who served on either board since Jan. 1, 2005.

Acciona Wind Energy USA has proposed a 51-turbine St. Lawrence Wind Farm for the town and BP Alternative Energy has an active application for the 62-turbine Cape Vincent Wind Farm. The proposed projects have caused controversies between pro- and anti-wind advocates, including allegations of conflicts of interest among town officials.

Third Feature:

Open Access to Paperless Records

SOURCE: The Times Record, www.timesrecord.com

August 13, 2010

Maine’s Freedom of Access Act is based on the principle that government best serves the public when it operates in the most open manner possible. Without open meetings and access to public records citizens won’t know what their government is up to — and democracy can’t function properly.

So it should be a matter of grave concern to all Maine citizens — not just the press — that the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting essentially had a roadblock thrown in its path this spring when it requested documents from the Maine Public Utilities Commission as part of its research into the 2008 law to fast-track wind turbine development in the state.

As reported by the center’s Naomi Schalit in the three-part series that ran this week in The Times Record and several other Maine newspapers, the Wind Energy Act of 2008 implements a set of recommendations made unanimously by a task force named by Gov. John Baldacci in 2007.

The resulting legislation wasn’t even debated when it was approved unanimously by the Maine House and Senate. As Schalit notes in her first article, it “was a special interest bill justified at the time in the name of jobs, energy independence and climate change.”

Not surprisingly, given the lack of debate and scrutiny as the bill flew through the Legislature in 2008, it took time for the public to grasp what the Wind Energy Act’s ambitious goals of constructing 1,000 to 2,000 turbines by 2020 actually means … and the impact that might have on Maine’s western mountains.

What Schalit has done is raise important questions about the process by which this major piece of legislation became law. Key among them is how the governor’s task force created a map showing where wind turbines could go to receive fast-track consideration. What she discovered is that it’s not clear from the official record, largely because summaries for the task force’s last two meetings don’t exist.

The lack of a paper trail is an obvious red flag, and dogged reporter that she is, Schalit used the obvious tool for any Maine citizen curious about how laws and policies come about: She filed an FOAA request with the Maine Public Utilities Commission, whose former chairman, Kurt Adams, had accepted a job with the wind power company First Wind in April 2008.

Schalit sought e-mails from 2005 to 2007 between Adams and First Wind, between Adams and Baldacci (for whom he had previously worked as legal counsel), and between Adams and several wind power attorneys employed by Verrill Dana. Given Adams’ role as PUC chairman, his close ties to Baldacci and subsequent employment with First Wind, the requested documents would seem germane to the public’s interest in the deliberations of the governor’s wind power task force.

How germane? We might never know. That’s because Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting initially was told it would cost upwards of $10,000 for the PUC to search for the requested information on backup discs of its e-mail records.

The center asked for a waiver, as allowed in the FOAA. The state refused and amended its cost estimate to $36,239.52.

Clearly, that’s “access” in theory only.

If the state’s computer archiving system is so inefficient that it cannot retrieve requested electronic records easily or at minimal expense, the public loses its ability to keep track of what’s going on. Government becomes, then, less accountable.

It’s not likely that this is an isolated failure, given the push for “paperless” records at all levels of government.

Maine’s Freedom of Access Act needs to be brought into the 21st century, with provisions added that would prevent state, county and local governments from creating de facto barriers of difficulty and cost when the records being sought are only available in electronic form.



Note from the BPWI Research Nerd: Spanish wind giant, Acciona, owns easements to land in Rock County for a large wind project that would occupy Magnolia Township. The proposal is for 67 wind turbines to be sited in Magnolia's 36 square miles.

Acciona has not responded to repeated email from Better Plan asking for information about the project.

The contracts held by Acciona for farmland in Rock County were solicited by a "local" wind developer, EcoEnergy, who wooed local residents, held contract signing parties and open houses and then quickly 'flipped' the project to Spanish ownership. How much EcoEnergy made by selling the valuable contracts is unknown, but the farmers who signed away their land won't see any of it.

Like a bad neighbor, Acciona of Spain is there.

Acciona submits 'final' statement; Developer ignores consultant's views on noise analysis

SOURCE: Watertown Daily Times, www.watertowndailytimes.com

August 12, 2010

By Nancy Madsen

CAPE VINCENT — The developer of St. Lawrence Wind Farm has eliminated two wind turbines for noise and wetland considerations, but it ignored the conclusions of the town’s consultant on noise analysis in order to maintain a 51-turbine array.

Acciona Wind Energy USA submitted the possible Final Environmental Impact Statement to the town Planning Board on July 28. The board will meet at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Cape Vincent Recreation Park, 602 S. James St., to decide whether to accept the statement and deem it complete.

The developer’s consultant, David M. Hessler of Hessler Associates Inc., Haymarket, Va., maintained that his handling of noise measurements and analysis were proper. But the town’s independent consultants, Gregory C. Tocci and William J. Elliot of Cavanaugh Tocci Associates, Sudbury, Mass., found fault with the analysis.

Mr. Hessler used sound levels that were an average of 44 decibels during the summer and 37 decibels during the winter when the wind is blowing.

According to a state Department of Environmental Conservation guideline, noise exceeding six decibels above ambient is considered intrusive or objectionable. Hessler Associates’ analysis showed the array of turbines would not create noise above six decibels above ambient at any residence.

“All residences, whether participating or not, lie outside of the 42 dBA sound contour line and will be short of the 6 dBA NYSDEC threshold,” the developer wrote in the statement. “However, wind and weather conditions (i.e., temperature inversion and low level jetstreams) may develop from time to time causing Project sound levels to increase, sometimes substantially, over the normal predicted level.”

Those periods should be short, the statement said, although it noted that the cumulative effects if both St. Lawrence Wind Farm and BP Alternative Energy’s Cape Vincent Wind Farm were built would push noise levels above the DEC guideline. The statement predicted higher levels for six participating and 37 nonparticipating residences.

In letters to town engineer Kris D. Dimmick, of Bernier, Carr & Associates, Watertown, Mr. Elliot and Mr. Tocci repeated criticism of the noise analysis Mr. Elliot described to town officials in February. He said then that Hessler’s data did not statistically support the correlation between wind speed and noise. To get a stronger correlation, the wind speed and noise levels would have to be taken at the same location, but they were not, he said.

In a May 14 letter, the two disputed the background noise levels that Mr. Hessler assumed through his regression analysis. Mr. Elliot and Mr. Tocci had measurements that averaged five decibels below the levels Mr. Hessler predicted in his regression analysis. They recorded the sound levels at specific wind speeds.

If ambient noise levels have been overstated in the impact statement, it will allow higher levels of noise from turbines without violating DEC limits.

“Using a regression to associate background sound with wind speed frequently underestimates wind turbine noise impact by permitting frequent conditions where turbine sound significantly exceeds the NYSDEC margin of 6 dBA,” Mr. Elliot and Mr. Tocci wrote.

In a rebuttal letter June 21, Mr. Hessler said the actual measured noise values were too strict.

“Using these overly conservative values in the various wind speed bins as bases for evaluating the nominal impact threshold of a 6 dBA increase would undoubtedly and unrealistically suggest that adverse noise impacts will occur on a widespread basis over the entire project area and beyond,” Mr. Hessler wrote.

In a July 15 letter, Mr. Elliot and Mr. Tocci again argued against using the regression analysis and for the actual measurements from wintertime.

Using the measurements “leads to an impact threshold based on the NYSDEC policy that is approximately 5 dBA lower than the impact threshold estimated by Hessler” at 13.4 miles per hour, they wrote. “It is at this wind speed that Hessler indicates the greatest potential noise impact may occur.”

They reiterated that the Hessler analysis does not show a “conclusive relationship” between sound and wind speed. As a result of the averages used by Hessler, Cavanaugh Tocci suggested instituting a resolution process for noise complaints.

The developer proposed a complaint resolution procedure. A written complaint from a resident or business would go first to the developer. Acciona would have five days to respond and if the developer couldn’t fix it, the complaint would be sent to a town designee for investigation.

Any testing would begin within 10 days of the report from Acciona. Test results would go to the plaintiff and town within 30 days. If the town Planning Board agreed the turbine violates permit conditions, the developer would mitigate it. If the plaintiff wasn’t happy with the resolution or it had been longer than 30 days and there had been no resolution, an appeal could be made to the complaint resolution board.

The board will have a member from the developer and the town and an independent consultant agreed upon by the developer and town. That member can change depending on the nature of the complaint.

The board has 30 days to hear the complaint and 30 days to render a binding decision.

Repeated complaints will trigger additional investigations only if the town determines the operational characteristics have changed since the first complaint.

The final statement also proposes eliminating two turbines for noise and wetland concerns, moving a turbine 2.9 miles and adjusting 10 turbines to decrease wind turbulence. It includes additional well, wetland and wildlife studies. Five segments of roads and 23 intersections will need improvements to handle the construction, and 31 of the 51 turbines will be lit with simultaneously flashing beacons, according to Federal Aviation Administration standards.

The statement also responds to all comments made by agencies and the public on the draft and supplemental environmental impact statements.

The statement is available at the Cape Vincent Public Library, 157 N. Real St.; Lyme Free Library, 12165 Main St., Chaumont, and Cape Vincent town clerk’s office, 1964 Route 12E. If it is accepted as complete, it will be available on Acciona’s website as well.

If the board deems the statement complete, it can complete its findings and end the environmental review after 10 days. The board has indicated that could happen Sept. 15. Other involved agencies, but not the public, also will weigh in with findings.

SECOND FEATURE:

WIND POWER LAW HASN'T RESOLVED DEVELOPMENT CONFLICTS

 SOURCE: Maine Center For Public Interest Reporting, bangordailynews.com,

 By Naomi Schalit, Senior Reporter

AUGUSTA, Maine — After proposing major changes to state law that would speed up the review of wind power projects, Gov. John Baldacci’s wind power task force members went one step further: They made a map.

Without the map, the law would just be a set of rules. The map was essential because it showed where wind turbines could go to get fast-track consideration.

The map designated all the organized towns and about a third of the unorganized territory as the state’s “expedited wind zone” where that speedy consideration of projects would take place. The task force also proposed to allow the Land Use Regulation Commission to expand the areas if applicants met certain standards.

How that map got drawn is not clear from the official record of the task force’s meetings. That’s because summaries for the last two meetings don’t exist, said task force chair Alec Giffen’s secretary, Rondi Doiron.

“Everyone was working straight out on getting the report done and no one had time to get the summaries done,” Doiron wrote in an email to the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting.

But Giffen and others freely describe the map’s genesis: First, Giffen consulted with the developers’ representatives one-by-one, as they were loathe to share proprietary information with competitors. Then he went to the environmental groups and asked what areas they wanted to protect.

Then he came up with a proposed map designating expedited wind development areas.

“I integrated, based on what I knew about what areas were important for what kinds of uses, presented it to the task force and got concurrence that the way in which it was outlined made sense,” Giffen said.

Others describe the map-drawing process as a last-minute rush to get the task force’s report done in time for legislators to consider as they neared the end of a short session.

“There was a lot of ‘Here, here, here and here’ and ‘No, no, no and no,” during the map debate, said task force member Rep. Stacey Fitts, R-Pittsfield. “It changed several times.” Maine Audubon’s Jody Jones described the process as “I want this in, I want this out.”

Whatever the process looked and sounded like is lost to the public record because no minutes were taken or recorded.

And that, says Sun Journal managing editor Judy Meyer, who’s also vice president of the Maine Freedom of Information Coalition, is “shocking.”

Maine law doesn’t require groups like the governor’s wind task force to memorialize deliberations, says Meyer.

“There’s no requirement that they record their meetings or produce minutes,” she says. “What smells particularly about this is that there are some summaries and not others. That’s a real eyebrow raiser. You’d think a governor’s task force would have the ability to keep minutes of its proceedings.”

Giffen says the map — which was approved by the full Legislature — is only the first step in deciding whether a project should be built in a specific place.

“It’s a coarse filter to try to get wind power development guided to parts of the landscape where it’s already partially developed and you already have infrastructure,” he said. “Then you have the finer filters of the regulatory process.”

Task force member Pete Didisheim of the Natural Resources Council of Maine, who was one of the group’s strongest proponents of wind power development, says the map provided an essential tool by taking a lot of uncertainty out of the process of siting wind farms. That’s because he says that the designation of expedited zones announced, by implication, where developers shouldn’t go.

“I don’t think that any other state has drawn a map that says to developers, ‘Don’t go here,’” said Didisheim.

Attorney Chip Ahrens, who attended task force meetings on behalf of two clients, a large wind power developer and an installer of small wind turbines in commercial and residential sites, said that approach turned state regulation on its head — appropriately:

“There had always been on the table the state saying where wind power should go,” said Ahrens, who stressed he was not speaking on behalf of his clients. “I said, ‘let’s say where it should not go.’”

And just because a site is in the expedited permit zone doesn’t mean it’s an automatic approval once a wind power project applies for a permit to build.

“The law specifically says that the permitting agency shall not compromise its regulatory review criteria,” says LURC director Catherine Carroll. “It’s not a slam dunk.”

Law tested, angering some

That point was made acutely clear this year in one of the first tests of the new law, an application by TransCanada to build turbines in the expedited wind zone near its western Maine Kibby Mountain project.

At a meeting on July 7 in Bangor, LURC commissioners — all of whom were nominated or renominated by Gov. John Baldacci — indicated by straw vote they’d deny TransCanada’s request to construct the turbines.

Several environmental organizations, including the three groups who were on the governor’s wind power task force, testified against portions of the project. Objections ranged from damage to wildlife to degradation of the scenically valuable high mountain site. Many of the commissioners likewise expressed concerns about the potential harm the project would do to the site.

Commissioners struggled to weigh the new law’s goals for wind power development against the environmental problems posed by the project.

“I’m terribly conflicted here,” said Commissioner Steve Schaefer.

He and other commissioners said they were unclear whether the law’s goals for wind power were binding on them and would force them to approve a project they didn’t feel protected the landscape they were legally obligated to protect.

“The Wind Power Act looms large here,” said Commissioner Ed Laverty.

“We’re all going to reduce global warming and our carbon footprint,” continued Laverty, “but most of the immediate benefits of projects like these do not accrue to the people of Maine, they’re exported through the grid elsewhere.

“What stays with us in the state of Maine are the environmental impacts.”

A few days after the LURC meeting, TransCanada’s project manager Nick DiDomenico was outraged at the meeting’s outcome. The environmental groups that had participated in the task force and then opposed TransCanada’s proposal drew his special wrath:

“The [environmental groups] were at the table when the map was drawn up,” he said. “That to me means these areas are acceptable for visual impacts. Maybe we were a little naive in drawing that conclusion.

“We thought the Wind Power Act meant something.”

Within eight days, construction company Cianbro’s chairman Peter Vigue had published a column in the Bangor Daily News criticizing LURC. Cianbro has done construction work on TransCanada’s wind power projects as well as others in the state.

“This unpredictable regulatory environment will discourage investment in Maine,” wrote Vigue.

On Aug. 1, retired law professor Orlando Delogu published a similarly sharp-toned column in the Maine Sunday Telegram.

“Reading a transcript of the recent LURC hearing on TransCanada’s proposed Kibby No. 2 wind energy project, a 45-megawatt expansion of an existing facility in Chain of Ponds Township, makes you want to cry for Maine’s economy and energy future,” wrote Delogu.

“And then it makes you mad.”

But state Sen. Peter Mills isn’t mad at LURC. Instead, he calls the LURC commissioners “victims” of a new state policy that isn’t clear enough about if, and how, competing values can be resolved.

“No one wanted to be bothered with the details,” said Mills. “We’ll just leave it up to LURC to figure out what we mean. We passed this thing, but we never gave them the tools to deal with this.”

LURC Commissioner Sally Farrand mirrored Mills’ frustration, when she remarked during the July 7 hearing, “Boy, I sure hope we can tighten up some of this stuff because I see it as a skating rink with some very dull skates.”

Other problems

There are other problems created by the legislation. One unintended consequence is that Maine mountain ridgelines, once available at relatively cheap prices to those who wanted to preserve them, have become coveted – and expensive – pieces of land.

“Were it not for the wind-power market, alpine land has fairly limited value,” said Alan Stearns, deputy director of the Bureau of Parks and Lands. “Right now the mathematics is land with wind power potential is not for sale for conservation.

“As long as the market for wind power is dynamic,” said Stearns, “most landowners with wind-power potential are working with wind power developers, not conservation groups, for that land.”

And turbine noise that irritates neighbors has proven to be especially problematic, with residents who live near towers complaining of sleep disturbance and other health problems.

But a comparison of the task force’s report with the governor’s legislation that became the Wind Power Act reveals a significant omission: The recommendation that the environmental protection commissioner be given the power to modify the noise aspects of a project’s permit never made it into the legislation.

Gov. Baldacci supplied the following answer in writing when asked why that provision had been left out of his wind power legislation:

“I relied on the Task Force members’ review of the draft legislation as a complete and accurate reflection of all the recommendations in their Report. If one or more of their recommendations was not included, I was not aware of that nor was any omission or deletion done at my request or direction.”

Task Force Chairman Giffen likewise had no idea how the omission occurred, and told the Center he knew of no plans to correct it.

Finally, the building of enormous, high-voltage transmission lines that the regional electricity system operator says are required to move substantial amounts of wind power to markets south of Maine was never even discussed by the task force – an omission that Mills said will come to haunt the state.

“If you try to put 2,500 or 3,000 megawatts in northern or eastern Maine — oh, my god, try to build the transmission!” said Mills. “It’s not just the towers, it’s the lines — that’s when I begin to think that the goal is a little farfetched.”

Uncertain future

What’s significant for the state’s wind power policy is that Mills, who wasn’t on the task force, isn’t the only one who now doubts whether the state can — or should — meet the goals promoted by the governor and enshrined in his Wind Energy Act.

Members of Baldacci’s hand-picked task force are dubious as well about whether there really are enough suitable — and politically acceptable — sites to build turbines to meet the goal of 2,000 megawatts by 2015 and 3,000 megawatts by 2020.

“We have to look at whether we have the land base to meet them,” said Jones.

Reaching 3,000 megawatts “is dependent on whether the political consensus holds up,” said task force member and DEP Commissioner David Littell.

“I think it’s a stretch to reach 2,000 by 2015,” said the NRCM’s Pete Didisheim.

But Giffen said he still believes that promoting wind power is an essential response to global warming.

“So big picture here, the way that I look at this, is to say, the idea that there’s not going to be any change in the state of Maine as regards our natural resources or how we generate energy, that’s not a possibility,” said Giffen.

”If we don’t do anyting, we’re going to see massive changes just in our natural resources. The changing climate conditions are going to mean that in 100 years the area around Portland is going to be suitable for loblolly pine (a southern tree species). What does that mean for our existing soils, our existing ecosystems?

“Is no change something that is even possible?” asks Giffen. “No, it’s not. Do we have significant problems with our energy supply and dependence on fossil fuels in terms of climate change? Yes.

“So is Maine well served by having looked at its regulatory system to see how it can deal in a rational way with this kind of development? Is it perfect? I doubt it. Will we learn as we go along? Yes.”

LURC Commissioner Laverty takes another perspective:

“I think we need to take into consideration, there aren’t a lot of these 2,700 plus foot mountains in the state of Maine … I think that we have to pay special attention to the impact on significant resources in these areas, because,” he said, “once you invade these resources, the chances of re-establishing them over time, at least in our lifetimes, probably are fairly slim.”

In the end, the law that was supposed to put conflict to rest has not, and for a host of reasons, both procedural and substantive. Harvard University professor Henry Lee, who teaches energy and international development at the Kennedy School of Government, said the conflict in values that wasn’t resolved by Maine’s Wind Energy Act — where those who want to act against the threats of global warming fight land conservationists — is one that’s playing out across the nation and globe.

“I think that this pits to some extent environmental organizations against each other,” said Lee. “Some are focused on pollution issues and see wind and solar and other renewables as a significant improvement in terms of reduced pollution — and it is.

“On the other hand if you’re worried about land use, in a world where … you have a finite quantity of land, there will continue to be significant disputes,” said Lee. “Wind sites tend to be slightly better along the coast and at higher altitudes, exactly where you have sign conflicts with esthetics.

“These disputes are going to get more intense, not less,” Lee said.

SECOND FEATURE  

Wisconsin looks in the mirror and sees the state of Maine

The law “signals to the world that Wisconsin is in the wind business, and that we intend to be one of the leading states in production of wind energy.”

-Governor Jim Doyle

“It will be wave after wave of wind power projects coming to Maine because they will see what we can do and will come here because of it." 

-Governor John Baldacci

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Sound is bad all day

this is one of the turbines that is around 1400 feet from the foundation of our home. this is just proof that these turbines were poorly [s]ited. they are absolutely too close to our home. some people may say the turbines look nice when visiting them, but living with them is a different story. we are not visiting them. we experience their different sounds everyday and the intense shadow flicker is disturbing. hopefully there will be some justice done in the near future.

Friday, August 6, 2010

Distressing Noise

SOURCE: KHQA NEWS  CLICK HERE TO WATCH VIDEO

ADAMS COUNTY, ILL. -- "I'm against irresponsible wind energy, and that's what this is," says Dave Hulthen.

That is Dave and Stephanie Hulthen from DeKalb County Illinois.

They are in Quincy for a couple of days sharing their thoughts on wind farms.

The Hultens live on a wind farm in DeKalb county, and they don't like it.

There are no wind turbines on their property, so they are not compensated by the wind energy company.

However, they tell KHQA their quality of life has been blown apart since the turbines came online this past December.

This is video of the Hulthen's house. You can see the shadows of the big turbines as they rotate from the wind. They tell me this happens just about every morning during a large part of the year. This is a look from the inside of their home.

"We are exposed to shadow flicker as well. That's where the turbine comes between the sun and our residence. We have a flickering in the morning where it could go for 45 minutes," says Dave Hulthen.

Dave Hulthen says there are two turbines within 1400 feet of his home. There are 13 within a mile. And the problems are more than just shadow flicker.

"It's like a jet plane just sitting on the property. Not flying overhead and leaving, but always sitting out there spinning. It's a hum, hum, hum. a low frequency drum noise," says Stephanie Hulthen.

Take a listen to this video shot around midnight one night.

The Hulthens didn't really know what it would be like to live on a wind farm. They visited one before the one near their house was built. They heard some noises and thought they could live with it. It wasn't until they lived with it 24 hours a day before they realized they didn't like it.

"Now we're affected in one way. In two years, could something else happen. We don't know," says Dave Hulthen.

So the Hulthens are in Adams County to share their concerns with the residents here. They say they have nothing to gain, they were not paid a salary to come here, they just believe people need to do their research first to make sure everyone associated with a wind farm is happy in the end.

The Hulthens do have a daily blog about living on the wind farm.

They say not all days are bad, but a majority of them are.

They also blog about the good days too.

If you'd like to read their blog posts, you can click here. 

There is also a question and answer session with the Hulthen Tuesday at the Quincy Senior and Family Resource Center from 1:00 to 3:00 in the afternoon.

The Adams County Board is voting on its newly revised draft ordinance Tueaday night.

You'll remember an original ordinance was past earlier this year.

This new draft addresses some of the concerns of residents and a wind energy company.

KHQA spoke to County Board Chairman Mike McLaughlin, he says this new draft addresses the issue of shadow flicker.

"My board's biggest concern is to take care of the health and safety of the residence of Adams County. We don't want to bring in something that's going to harm anybody. That's obviously not our intent," says McLaughlin.

McLaughlin says Adams County is working with a different company than the one that operates the wind farm in DeKalb County.

He adds there could also be other issues, such as elevation, that affect properties differently.

As far as some benefits to a wind farm in Adams County, it could be a big boost on the economic front.

McLaughlin says a lot of the county's taxing districts, like schools and libraries, would benefit a lot from the development.

In the news:

ANOTHER CHAPTER FROM "WIND DEVELOPERS BEHAVING BADLY", CANADA,

"We will build resources, including capital and marketing materials, to challenge this bylaw and any similar bylaws passed in other municipalities including funds to support any legal challenge as a result of delayed issuance of building permits," [Wind developer] Edey said.

"That is not to be looked at as a threat, because it is not," Edey told council and about a dozen wind energy opponents at the meeting. "We don't believe going to court is a good use of resources, but if that's what it takes to move the project forward, well . . ."

From Wind turbines in the news: 10/10/10  "Gloves off in wind farm showdown"

AUGUSTA — The Wind Energy Act of 2008, which gave developers fast-track approval for putting up wind turbines in some of the state's treasured high ground, was justified at the time in the name of jobs, energy independence and climate change.

“There is tremendous potential for Maine to become a leader in clean, renewable energy, including wind energy,” said Gov. John Baldacci, who appointed the task force whose report led to the bill. “This kind of investment would create jobs and help to expand Maine’s economy.”

But now, two years after the law was championed by Baldacci, some members of the task force are questioning whether the goals they set for wind power can, or even should be, achieved.

Critics and even some one-time supporters say the proponents of the law were swept up in a tidal wave of enthusiasm for a technology that turns out to require significant sacrifice from the state, but has little to offer Maine in return.

That issue was faced head-on recently when the state Land Use Regulation Commission was asked to rule on an extension of a TransCanada wind project in western Maine.

LURC Commissioner Ed Laverty summed up the problem with the bill: “Our job is to protect the resources in these high mountain areas ... given the fragile nature, and the rich nature of the resources in these areas, we have to ask ourselves, to what extent can these benefits really outweigh the long-term costs?

Chris O’Neil, a former state legislator who now works as a public affairs consultant to groups opposing wind power development in Maine’s mountains, said that the governor’s vision was fundamentally flawed.

“To fulfill the charge of making Maine a leader in wind power development and to simultaneously protect Maine’s quality of place is impossible,” O’Neil said.

The bill constituted one of the most significant changes in the state’s land use laws in a generation:

— It weakened longstanding rules that would have required wind turbines “to fit harmoniously into the landscape.” LURC Director Catherine Carroll said, “That’s a huge change.”

— The bill cut off a layer of appeal for those protesting state permits for wind power.

— It set ambitious goals for the development of wind power that could result in 1,000 to 2,000 turbines being constructed along hundreds of miles of Maine’s landscape, including the highly prized mountaintops where wind blows hard and consistently.

— It opened every acre of the state’s 400 municipalities to fast-track wind development.

Baldacci said all this could be done without hurting Maine’s landscape or the tourism industry.

The legislation was based on the report of the Governor’s Task Force on Wind Power Development, whose members all favored wind power development and who, likewise, asserted that their blueprint for wind power development would return substantial rewards and could be pursued without sacrifice.

“Maine can become a leader in wind power development, while protecting Maine’s quality of place and natural resources, and delivering meaningful benefits to our economy, environment, and Maine people,” task force members wrote.

Now, as wind turbines are sprouting on Maine’s mountains accompanied by heavy machinery, roads, transmission lines, substations, wells and concrete plants, that certainty is yielding to doubt for some.

“I think people didn’t have a good appreciation of this, including us, for what the whole thing entails,” said Maine Audubon’s Jody Jones, a biologist who served on the task force. “This process was another step to better environmental policy, but there were clearly flaws.”

And members of LURC have recently indicated they’ll turn down TransCanada’s wind power development in an ecologically sensitive, high-elevation region near the Canadian border. The move was widely seen as a rebuke to the idea that wind power should be developed at all costs and enraged the developer and wind power promoters.

That the unanimity behind the wind power law is breaking down does not surprise Jones.

Momentum slipping

“People live near them, projects have been built, we can touch and feel them in a way that’s not theoretical. ... There isn’t the momentum for wind power at all costs that there was when the task force did its work,” Jones said.

That momentum may have papered over some significant differences among task force members that are now becoming more obvious.

As they neared completion of their report on wind power development in December 2007, Baldacci made the unusual move of sending his senior policy adviser, Karin Tilberg, to press task force members to issue a unanimous set of recommendations.

They did as Baldacci asked, and that unanimity, from a group whose members represented prominent environmental groups as well as wind power developers, set the stage for the bill’s unanimous passage through a legislative committee.

Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion.

House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, said legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine if the law’s goals were met. The number is likely to be at least 1,000 and perhaps as high as 2,000.

Instead, they got carried along in the wave of enthusiasm that emerged from the administration, the legislative committee, wind power developers and the governor’s task force.

“Wind power was exciting,” says Pingree. “I think legislators had a sense we wanted to be bold and have the state be a real leader in this area. They may not have known how many turbines, or the challenges of siting that many turbines.”

An investigation by the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting of the workings of the wind power task force through numerous interviews and a review of relevant documents reveals a number of problems with the law and its development:

— Appointing only wind power supporters to the task force and rushing the legislation through the Legislature failed to address public skepticism about the state’s wind power policy. Issues that might have been aired through a State House debate continue to be raised by a growing number of critics of wind power, who doubt the policy’s premises that wind power brings widespread economic benefits, moves Maine off fossil fuels or can be developed without compromising the quality of Maine’s landscape.

— Members of LURC, who review proposals for wind power development in unorganized territories, have expressed consternation about the contradictory and perhaps unachievable goals of the Wind Power Act: to promote wind power development, ensure communities get benefits from the development and protect the very parts of the Maine landscape where wind power turbines are likely to be built.

— The designation of “expedited wind power zones” along some of the state’s wildest mountaintops has raised the value of that real estate, since it’s now a target for wind power development. That had the unintended effect of creating competition for conservationists who want to protect that land.

— The task force ignored the need for massive new transmission line construction to move wind energy from turbines to market, which could be costly to ratepayers, disrupt habitat and landscape and engender significant opposition from towns and conservation groups.

— At least one significant task force recommendation — to allow the DEP commissioner to modify permits if wind turbines made too much noise — was left out of the governor’s bill that became the wind power law.

— One of the most crucial discussions held by the task force — what lands to open to expedited wind power development — is not in the public record. There were no minutes taken or produced for those final two meetings of the task force.

Baldacci still a believer

Gov. Baldacci remains steadfast in his support of wind power. He and Tilberg refused to grant the Center an interview in person, but Baldacci responded to questions in writing:

“I believe that reducing reliance on fossil fuels for energy in Maine and the region will greatly increase Maine’s quality of place by reducing carbon emissions, slowing climate change from greenhouse gases (which affects our forests, watersheds, oceans and fisheries, agriculture, wildlife and other natural resources), pushing natural gas off the margins in the bid stack and thereby reducing electricity costs, promoting energy security and self-reliance, and keeping Maine citizens’ dollars circulating in Maine and not being sent to other jurisdictions.

“For many people, including myself, quality of place includes living in a manner that does not push environmental or safety risks to other places and people.”

Land-based wind power development is certainly not dead in Maine. But the wind power bandwagon that came roaring out of the State House in 2008 is encountering obstacles that are slowing it down.

“Call it the bloom off the rose, call it the emperor being exposed as having no clothes,” said O’Neil. “As the public learns the truth about the impacts and the benefits of this sort of development, the public is losing its interest in industrial scale wind.”

Combine those homegrown obstacles with an increasingly tight credit market and uncertainty over continued government subsidies for the industry, and wind power development these days in Maine looks like much less of a sure thing than Baldacci, the Legislature, some environmentalists and the wind industry hoped it would be just two years ago.

Naomi Schalit is executive director and senior reporter of the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, a nonprofit and nonpartisan journalism organization based in Hallowell. E-mail: mainecenter@gmail.com. On the Web at pinetreewatchdog.org.