Turbine Blade Damage 'Unusual'

SOURCE: Daily Chronicle, www.daily-chronicle.com

May 7, 2010

By Dana Herra

SHABBONA TOWNSHIP – Officials at NextEra Energy Resources aren’t sure what caused one of the three blades on a wind turbine south of the village of Shabbona to fail Friday morning. The 131-foot-long blade hung from the top of the turbine Friday, apparently bent at the base and split along its length.

A 131-foot-long turbine blade was damaged in the wind farm south of Shabbona.

That type of failure is unusual, NextEra spokesman Steve Stengel said.

“Our inspection at this point has just been visual, so at this point we don’t know what caused that,” Stengel said Friday afternoon. “Based on just visual inspection, it’s very unusual to have a blade fail and look like that.”

Stengel said the blade failed about 7:30 a.m. Friday. No one was injured and nothing besides the blade was damaged, he said. The turbine has been shut down.

The access road leading from Houghtby Road to that section of the 145-tower commercial wind farm was blocked off with orange cones and traffic barricades Friday. Stengel said NextEra is in the process of getting a replacement blade and arranging for a crane to repair the turbine so it can go back online after the cause of the failure has been determined.

Several vehicles pulled to the side of Houghtby Road while their occupants looked at the broken turbine Friday. One of those looking was Mel Hass, a member of a citizens group that filed a lawsuit last year opposing the wind farm.

Hass said he came to look at the turbine after getting a call that it had failed, and he had wondered if it was somehow damaged in a Thursday night thunderstorm.

THIRD FEATURE

Windmill Down; Fences Up

SOURCE: MADISON COUNTY COURIER

May 8, 2010

Safety Measures Implemented to Keep Public out of ‘Collapse Zone’

By Martha E. Conway

(Fenner) Enel Energy officials announced in March that heightened safety measures would be taken in light of the collapse of a windmill in the Fenner Wind Farm on Buyea Road Dec. 27.

“When the incident occurred, we fenced it off and set up security,” said Hank Sennott, director of corporate affairs and communications for Enel North America, Inc., out of Andover, Mass.

Now Enel is fencing off every turbine, Sennott said. He said with all the snow that stuck around this winter, it was difficult for anyone to get to the turbines, but with it gone, the company is erecting snow fencing to demarcate the “safety zone.”

“We are exercising an abundance of caution,” Sennott said. “The public has gotten use to having pretty liberal access to these turbines. We also needed to stake out the space before farmers begin working their fields.”

One of the things that made leasing so attractive to farmers was that they could work the land virtually up to the base of the windmill towers. Now Sennott says compensatory agreements will be made for the loss of use of the cropland unavailable inside the 300-foot radius – about the height of each windmill – staked out around each turbine.

The decision was made after concrete core samples from the foundations preliminarily showed inconsistent aging and degradation.

“Some of the samples looked like they were poured yesterday,” Sennott said. “Others… Didn’t.”

According to Sennott the samples of five or six foundations led to the decision to test all 19 in the project. He said the company is in the home stretch of collecting data and a report is expected soon.

Surveyors also are working the site to make sure towers are not moving, Sennott said.

“The last thing we want to do is have something happen,” Sennott said, adding that also is the motivation behind not hurrying to restart the turbines.

Sennott said he doesn’t know how much revenue is being lost each day the turbines don’t turn; he said he hopes the company can pull back the fences quickly and Enel’s expectation is that the turbines will be up and running by the fall.

“I don’t know of any turbine foundation failures, but we were the first, so there is nothing to go back and research,” Sennott said. “This project was the larges built east of the Mississippi when we constructed it 10 years ago. There’s no history for us to look at.”

Sennott said how much location may play into the problem is still a big unknown.

“That’s why we’re being overly cautious,” Sennott said. “Maybe we’ll look back and think it was excessive, but we would rather go overboard on the side of safety. We’ve never had any incidents, and we’ve never had anything like this ever happen.”

The top windmill engineering firm in the world is working on the investigation and report, Sennott said, and subcontractors who helped construct the project also are assisting.

“It’s been a real collective effort to try and sort this out,” Sennott said. “Everyone’s stepped up to the plate.”

Sennott said the community pride in the wind farm has been unparalleled.

“We can’t go anywhere without people tapping us on the shoulder, asking us when they are going to be started again,” Sennott said. “It shows that people are interested and care. There is real community pride in this project. Everybody’s been great. You don’t know how it feels to visit the Fenner website and see our turbines there. That really says it all.”

About the Fenner Wind Farm

The Fenner Windpower Project consists of 20 wind turbines, each with a capacity of 1.5 megawatts for a total installed capacity of 30 megawatts. Each wind turbine generator consists of a concrete foundation, a 213-foot-tall tubular steel tower, a 231-foot diameter, three-bladed rotor connected to a gearbox and generator, and an electrical control center to automatically operate the system.

The towers are 13.5 feet in diameter at the base and 8.5 feet at the top. The total height of each tower with blade extended is 328 feet; each blade is 113 feet long.

Each turbine weighs 380,000 pounds; the concrete foundation for each tower weighs more than 610,000 pounds. Access to the top of the tower is made by use of a vertical ladder located inside each tower.

The project is located in the town of Fenner, about 20 miles east of Syracuse in Madison County. The project encompasses about 2,000 acres of leased land running from the intersection of Mile Strip and Bellinger Roads in the North to the intersection of Buyea and East Roads in the south.

Two additional wind turbines and the electrical substation are located south of the intersection of Peterboro and Rouses roads, east of the main project site. Electricity produced by the windmills is transmitted to the National Grid power grid.

Construction began in June 2001 and was completed in November of that year.



NOTE FROM THE BPWI RESEARCH NERD: Better Plan has been following the Wirtz family story since our first interview with them in June of 2009 on the day they decided to abandon their home because of noise and vibration from the turbine in the photo below.

You can read our first interview with the family by CLICKING HERE

The Wirtz family had been living in and renovating the 100 year old home pictured below for 12 years before Invenergy began erecting 86 industrial scale wind turbines. The 400 foot structures are sited as close as 1000 feet from non-participating homes.The turbine in this photo is located 1250 feet from the Wirtz home.

They were unable to find anyone willing to purchase the property and say they were unable to stay because of the deterioration of the family's health due to loss of sustained sleep because of tubine noise and vibration.

We spoke with Ann Wirtz, who attended the May 4th Wind Siting Council meeting at the home of council member Larry Wunsh. Wunsch, a fire fighter, lives in the same Invenergy project and spoke to the council about the turbine noise which keeps he and his wife awake at night.

At the same time Wunsch was speaking, Ann told us her home was being auctioned at a sheriff's sale. Though the home had appraised for $320,000 in 2007, the opening bid on the house was $107,000.

Even at that price it found no local buyers. The Bank of New York Mellon took ownership at a price of $106,740.

Better Plan was glad to hear from Ann that the Wirtz family's health has greatly improved since they moved to the village of Oakfield.

Both Ann and Jason Wirtz grew up in rural Wisconsin and intended to raise their children in their 100 year old farmhouse.

Both decided it was not worth the cost of their family's health to remain in the Invenergy Forward Energy wind project, even if it meant losing all they had.

They do have their health, but what a price they have had to pay.

Most members of Wisconsin's wind siting council continue to claim there is no effect on property value when wind turbines are built so near a home.

They continue to claim there are no negative health effects from living too close to wind turbines.

The Wirtz family begs to differ.

Council member Larry Wunsch's home is now for sale.

The closest turbine to his door is 1100 feet away.

The Wind Siting Council will be creating siting guidelines for wind turbines for the entire state of Wisconsin.

More than two thirds of the council members have direct or indirect financial interest in the outcome of these rules.

CLICK HERE TO SEE WHO IS ON THE WIND SITING COUNCIL

WIND FARM PROPERTY SOLD AT SHERIFF'S SALE

 SOURCE: The Daily Reporter, dailyreporter.com

May 6, 2010

By Paul Snyder

The attorney representing two Oakfield residents in a case against Chicago-based Invenergy LLC wants the results of a sheriff’s sale this week to convince the state to review the case.

Madison-based attorney Ed Marion on Thursday sent a letter to the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin, requesting it consider new facts in Ann and Jason Wirtz’s case against Invenergy.

The Wirtzes abandoned their home in Brownsville last year after Invenergy’s Forward Energy Wind Center became operational in 2008. The property, appraised at $320,000 in 2007, sold to the Bank of New York Mellon at a sheriff’s sale Tuesday for $106,740.

“I hope it will influence the commission to look favorably, at least, at giving us our day in court,” Marion said.

The Wirtzes want the PSC to force Invenergy to compensate the family for their losses, although no specific amount is named.

Marion said the PSC has not yet made a decision as to whether it will review the case.



"It can sound like a freight train going through the other end of town. The problem is that freight train don't have a caboose. It don't stop. It just keeps rolling and rumbling on and on and on, for hours and hours," 

-Al Haas, farmer hosting turbines on his land

Wind blowing up storm of strong opinions

100 wind turbines proposed for Brown County

CLICK HERE FOR SOURCE: WLUK-TV Fox 11

Wednesday, May 5 2010, 7:20 PM CDT

Reporter: Lou Hillman

MALONE - If you walked out of your home every morning and saw wind turbines in every which direction, is it a site you would get used to?

"You don't even notice them anymore. They've been here two years and it's just a part of life now, I guess," said Ken Krause, a farmer in the Fond du Lac County town of Marshfield.

Or, is it a site you would grow to hate?

"Not these big, industrial turbines. They just don't belong here," said Al Haas, a farmer in the Fond du Lac County town of Malone.

It's something many neighbors in Fond du Lac County will never agree on. Opinions are even more polarized among those who live on the Blue Sky Green Field wind farm . With 88 wind turbines, it is currently the largest wind farm in the state.

Haas has three turbines spinning on his farmland. He makes about $15,000 a year just for having them there. That's a nice side income with no extra work involved.

"We were told we would basically be able to farm right up to it. We were told there would be basically no land loss to speak of, it just sounded like a good deal," said Haas.

That extra money? Haas now says it isn't worth it. He blames the wind turbines for damaging his crops and interfering with his TV reception.

But his main complaint is the noise. He says it keeps him up at night and has led to stress.

"It can sound like a freight train going through the other end of town. The problem is that freight train don't have a caboose. It don't stop. It just keeps rolling and rumbling on and on and on, for hours and hours," said Haas.

"There are probably 3 or 4 days out of the month where they are loud but I think it's a small prices to pay," said Ken Krause.

Krause stands on the other side of the wind debate. He even likes the look of the two turbines on his farmland.

"If each community in the country was doing what we are doing, we wouldn't need foreign oil ... Not as much anyway," said Krause.

Krause points to the pain at the pump two summers ago.

"Some people are already forgetting the $4 (a gallon) gas we had a couple years back. This is helping," said Krause.

So, are all the wind turbines worth it? That's what people in Brown County want to know. Some have even contacted people on both sides of the issue in Fond du Lac County to hear first hand with it's really like living inside a wind farm.

"Is there a place for wind? Maybe. But I don't think it's in Wisconsin," said Jon Morehouse, the spokesman for Brown County Citizens for Responsible for Wind Energy .

The group represents more than 200 people who are opposed to large-scale wind development in Brown County. Many of those people say wind turbines blemish the landscape and pose health hazards.

"We need to slow down, we need to slow down until things get put into place to regulate these industrial monsters to a safe and healthy level," said Morehouse. "People are going to have to put up with them for 30 years."

100 turbines are proposed in southern Brown County, with 54 turbines going in the town of Morrison, 22 in Holland, 20 in Wrightstown and 4 in Glenmore. It would be the largest wind farm in the state.

The project is being developed by Invenergy, a private firm from Chicago . The company says the location is one of the best places to harness wind in Wisconsin.

"Wisconsin has very good places for good wind and good transmission capabilities near where the power is going to be used," said Kevin Parzyck, the wind development manager for Invenergy.

Invenergy is still modifying its application for the project. It will ultimately go to the state Public Service Commission for a decision.

That process will likely take several more months which gives people in Brown County more time to research the issue.

"We want people to go. Go to a turbine, stand under a turbine, see what it's like, the proof is in the pudding," said Parzyck.

Though, there are many farmers in Fond du Lac County who say a few days in their shoes would turn most people against wind development.

CLICK HERE FOR SOURCE

Windfall (2009)

Director: Laura Israel

7:30 PM • HINMAN THEATER at HOTEL ORRINGTON 

WINDFALL

USA | 80 min. I Director: Laura Israel I Regional Premiere   

ADDED SCREENING on Sat, May 8 • 11 AM • NEXT THEATRE

Director Laura Israel and producer Autumn Tarleton will be there in person. Screening sponsored by Comix Revolution.

 The 2010 Talking Pictures Festival (May 6-9)

By Marilyn Ferdinand

Just a few days ago, The Daily Beast and the Transparency International (TI), a global anti-corruption research organization, examined 500 global companies to determine how corrupt they might be based on their ethics and anti-corruption policies.

They found, perhaps surprisingly, that utility companies had the fewest protections against corruption of any industry they examined, including the investment sector.

In case you think The Daily Beast and TI might be mistaken, consider how you feel about wind energy. You’ll certainly never have to clean up an oil spill from it.

Or might you, indirectly?

Industrial-size windmills are the only form of energy that uses energy from the grid—which runs on natural gas and fossil fuels—and there are no data on whether they return more energy than they use.

It’s safe for people, of course. Except that numerous health effects have been noted, including ringing in the ears, interrupted sleep, and headaches that have driven people from their homes.

The turbines also throw ice from their blades that can injure and kill, and they have been known to fall over or catch fire from lightning strikes and shed debris.

It’s good for the environment—except for birds who fly too close to the 7-ton blades of the 400-foot-tall towers and bats, whose lungs literally explode because of an air vacuum that the blades leave in their wake.

Wind energy on an industrial scale is hazardous, unsightly, a noise polluter, and probably consumes more energy than it generates. But most people don’t know that, and that’s by design.

The citizens of the tiny, impoverished town of Meredith, New York, certainly didn’t when the wind energy salespeople came to town to offer financial relief in exchange for leases to build wind turbines there.

The people of Meredith went from naïve nature lovers to big-time skeptics, and from neighborliness to bitter division. Windfall is a cautionary tale of underhanded business dealings, small-town corruption, and laissez-faire citizenship that had to give way under the imminent threat of an irreversible intrusion into their rural idyll.

Meredith is a community in upstate New York that has seen its thriving dairy farms go from more than 1,000 to less than 10. When the energy companies came to town, they made offers to lease land, primarily to the largest landowners because of the need for at least 15–30 miles for a profitable siting.

They offered a profit split to the town. A few people got on board, but had to sign confidentiality agreements that they would not discuss the deal with anyone but their attorney.

Nonetheless, word leaked out that wind turbines would be coming to Meredith when a test tower went up on John Hamilton’s property; Hamilton, one of the few dairy farmers still left, felt villified by the wind energy skeptics, who organized The Alliance for Meredith to do fact-finding on the commercial proposals and consider a town-owned commercial wind project by which all the benefits from a single turbine would accrue to the citizens of Meredith.

As this film shows through interviews, footage of planning board and town board meetings, a visit to a neighboring town that rejected wind energy and one that accepted it and saw the project balloon from a planned 50 turbines to 195 with none of the benefits to the town they expected, the fight over wind power is a painful and difficult process.

Because of tax credits for alternative energy offered by the national and state governments, and a complete lack of regulation, wind energy is incredibly profitable for investors and energy companies. Lessors get about $5,000 and neighbor agreements go for $500. Municipalities get about 1–2% of the profits—when all is said and done, local governments might get enough money to buy a single fire truck.

We also see how Meredith’s town board, comprised of the largest landowners, could pass laws that would personally benefit them financially. Instead of accepting the findings of the planning board, per usual, that wind turbines should not be sited in Meredith, the town board chose to establish a Wind Energy Review Board appointed by and answerable to them alone.

This show of arrogance inflamed the citizens of Meredith and set up an election season that for the first time in a long time, was a real horse race.

Windfall is a comprehensive look at a largely misunderstood technology. It is must-viewing for environmentalists and for small towns who might find an energy worm burrowing into their midst. Clean, safe energy is everyone’s wish. Let’s just make sure we don’t jump at the first carnival barker with a miracle solution. 

The May 7 screening of Windfall is sold out. A second screening has been added on May 8 at 11:00 a.m. at Next Theatre at Noyes Cultural Arts Center, 927 Noyes Street, Evanston, Illinois.

NOTE FROM THE BPWI RESEARCH NERD:

Better Plan was fortunate enough to see an early version of 'Windfall' and we were struck by the similarities to the Wisconsin experience of wind developers targeting rural towns and local governments. The events detailed in the film will be familiar to anyone who has been called a 'NIMBY' for questioning wind industry practices and claims. For those who know very little about how the wind industry works, this film will be an eye-opening experience.



WIND PROPOSAL DIVIDING COMMUNITIES: 100 WIND TURBINES PROPOSED FOR BROWN COUNTY

Reporter: Lou Hillman, www.fox11online.com 4 May 2010

MORRISON – Imagine dozens of wind turbines, standing 400 feet tall, stretching across the farm fields of southern Brown County.

They’d be spinning, day and night, for at least the next 30 years.

Some believe it’s a picture of progress.

“Of course it is. Wind has been used since the beginning of time,” said Glen Martin, a landowner in the town of Morrison.

Others see it as a major misstep.

“What do you do when the wind don’t blow?” said Dick Koltz, a landowner in Wrightstown.

Nine commercial wind farms are already up and running in Wisconsin, but on the table is a proposal for the largest project yet: 100 wind turbines in southern Brown County. It’s known as the Ledge Wind Energy Project.

The project has been proposed by Invenergy, a private wind developer from Chicago.

“The beauty of wind, once it’s installed, it just runs and runs and runs without harmful commodities having to be used up,” said Kevin Parzyck, the project development manager for Invenergy.

“We’re not claiming this is the end all for all power needs. It’s one component of the mix,” said Parzyck.

Parzyck said the electricity generated by the wind turbines would be sold to utility companies in Wisconsin.

The current proposal places 54 turbines in the town of Morrison, 22 in Holland, 20 in Wrightstown and 4 in Glenmore.

One would be on Glen Martin’s farmland in the town of Morrison. He believes the wind turbines are a necessary step towards energy independence.

“We have to produce this electricity and power some place, just like we have to grow a crop some place, just like we have to mine coal some place. This all has been to be done some place and this is a good place to do it,” said Martin.

But it’s not just about going green. Landowners would be paid as much as $10,000 per year for each turbine on their property. That’s quite the bonus, especially for farmers who have seen their share of struggles.

“Let’s face it, it would be nicer and times are tough. I’m sure the last couple of years swayed some of them into doing it. It is attractive,” said Dick Koltz.

Koltz signed a contract to have one turbine on his farmland in the town of Wrightstown, but said he’s now having serious doubts. His opinion changed drastically after seeing the wind turbines up close on a trip to Fond du Lac County.

“It just sort of hit me that this should never be. Not this close and not the area. It just wasn’t a good feeling,” said Koltz.

The feeling was so bad, in fact, Koltz is trying to get out of his contract with Invenergy.

Many of his concerns are being voiced loudly by the group Brown County Citizens for Responsible Wind Energy. Spokesman Jon Morehouse says the group is made up of neighbors who think the turbines are unsightly and unsafe.

“It can have mental and physiological effects on your body. There is also the low frequency sound waves as well as the sounds waves that you can hear and those have negative effects from sleep depravation to increase blood pressure,” said Morehouse.

Invenergy denies those claims.

“There’s anecdotal evidence of certain people with problems but there are no scientific studies that there are problems with wind noise,” said Kevin Parzyck, the project development manager for Invenergy.

The opposition group’s more than 200 members still aren’t convinced. They continue to show up at town hall meetings to voice their concerns.

The group’s spokesman turned down an offer to have three turbines on his property. It could have made him nearly one million dollars.

“I would never do something on my land that would negatively affect somebody else in our community,” said Jon Morehouse.

Others say they just don’t care if their neighbors don’t like the project.

“If I decide to go ahead and put something up like that, that’s my right,” said Glen Martin.

Even though Invenergy has been signing up landowners to participate in the project, the company is still in the process of modifying its application with the state. That application will ultimately be reviewed and voted on by the Public Service Commission — a process we’re told is likely still several months away.