Better Plan, Wisconsin

Five hundred foot tall turbines go up near a farm in the Town of Glenmore

Glenmore home and 500 foot tall turbine going up in the distance

STATE'S TALLEST WIND TURBINES GOING UP IN BROWN COUNTY

SOURCE: wbay.com

By Jeff Alexander

Crews are erecting the tallest wind turbines in the state right now in southern Brown County.

They soar above the rural landscape in the Town of Glenmore. "Tallest in the state. With the blade full up, we're 496 feet," Shirley Wind Project site representative John Roberts said.

By the end of December, a New York-based company and its German based manufacturer will have eight turbines creating energy, unless residents like Jon Morehouse get their way.

"I think it should be stopped, personally. Will it be stopped? There are a few things in the works right now that may bring it to a stop," said Morehouse, of the group Brown County Citizens for Responsible Wind Energy.

Morehouse wouldn't elaborate on potential legal action but points to recently finalized standards set forth by the state's Public Service Commission regarding wind farms. Under those new guidelines, this project wouldn't have been allowed.

"These turbines shouldn't be any closer than 1,550 feet from somebody's house, and lo and behold they're 1,000," Morehouse said.

Roberts responds, "We met all of the regulations that were in place at the time. As far as the current regulations, I'm not aware of what they are; and whether or not we would be allowed to build this park, I just don't know."

Project officials point to job creation and clean energy as just a couple of many benefits they say come from the Glenmore wind farm project.

But residents opposing the project say they won't give up their fight.

"When I look at them, I'm part angry and mostly afraid," Pamela Schauer said, "because these are way too close to people's properties."

"If a drug goes on the market, it's pulled as soon as it's deemed unsafe. In this case, construction continues," Morehouse said.