Better Plan, Wisconsin

A word from our neighbors to the north about industrial scale wind turbine construction on farmland:

"Farmers, you are advised to check the facts."

[click here to read this at at source]

     "Somewhere among the pie-in-the-sky claims made by Prowind about how the wind turbine developments will actually add to the bucolic nature of the rural landscape, is the statement that farmers can use their land right up to within a couple of feet of the base for each turbine, and that the base doesn’t  take up much space.

Here is a photo taken by the CBC of the base for a turbine being constructed right now near Harrow, Ontario. THAT is how big the base really is (some of it will be underground when they backfill the earth). This base is for a turbine that is 120 meters high—the ones planned for North Gower are much larger.

What are the effects on the water table of a thing like that?"

NOTE FROM THE BPWI RESEARCH NERD:

Why is turbine construction so hard on farmland?

For the construction of the 88 turbine Blue Sky, Green Field Industrial wind plant in Fond du Lac County, the construction period was estimated to last up to ten months. And during that ten months, it was estimated that residents would have to share the road with over 9,000 trucks and other heavy equipment.

They included

Excavators
Bulldozers
Graders
Water Trucks
Concrete pumps
Cranes
Forklifts
Trailers
Plows
Trenchers
5,000 Gravel Trucks,
2,750 Cement trucks
Nearly 200 low boy and flat bed semis
For a total of over 8,200 trucks for construction materials.

Add onto that 880 oversized truck loads for the turbine parts--

You get 9,000 heavy trucks coming in and 9,000 trucks rolling out.

The trucks carrying the turbine parts are larger and weigh more than standard size.
Now add the weight of the turbine components:

The tower weight over 140 tons
Hub assembly over 15 tons
Blades over 6 tons each
Nacelle containing gearbox and generator over 53 tons.

Such loads on cropland can cause severe compaction of soil.

Click here to see photos and read more about wind turbine construction on Wisconsin farm land.