TURBINE TURMOIL: Proposed WI Wind Project Incites Residents
Posted: 04-28-2019 12:08 AM
LOOK! Up In The Sky! Is It A Bird? Is It A Plane?
NO! It's A Dairy State Public POWER STRUGGLE -
Industrial Turbines VS Cow Farts?? Place Your Bets, Folks!
RURAL WIND WAR WHIPS UP GREEN COUNTY CONTROVERSY
Proponents Say Project Will Invigorate Town, Help Environment; Others Fear Property Values, Health Will Decline
Edited/Excerpted from Sarah Whites-Koditschek's madison.com Investigative Journalism article:
Cindy Blanc and her husband, Peter Minucci, are freelance musicians who moved to 5 acres in the countryside in south-central Wisconsin for the scenic views and serenity.
Blanc leans against the glass door to her expansive backyard where they see a lot of wildlife, including owls. "This is the best place to watch stars ever because there’s no light out here," she said. "Now we’ll have … flashing lights."
Blanc was referring to EDF Renewables' 24 turbine Sugar River Wind Project proposal, spread over 5,870 acres with the capacity to provide power for 20,000 homes. Currently, wind power provides less than 3% of Wisconsin’s electricity.
Blanc learned about the project from an EDF email. Each nearly 500 feet tall, one turbine tower would be 1,500 feet from the couple’s home in the town of Jefferson, a rural farming community of 1,200 people near the Illinois border in Green County.
As large wind and solar projects have begun cropping up in rural areas the fight between residents and renewable energy is playing out in Wisconsin and other states. Blanc said she is not anti-wind, she just does not think turbines should be close to residences.
"We’re working musicians. We have no pension. We have no retirement. So this 5 acres and this janky old farm house, is like, it," Blanc said. “This is what we’ve worked for our entire lives." Worrying its value will fall, she asks "Who is going to want to buy it living in the shadow of giant, industrial wind?"
In excess of 70 Jefferson community members faced three town board members and the town attorney at an evening board meeting in late February, booing and jeering at times. The board was considering a possible wind ordinance after months of public pressure.
Under law, local governments passing wind ordinances gain the power to regulate, approve or reject a wind project, within bounds set by the state. Some residents like Blanc wanted the town to push the limits of the law and require setbacks from residences greater than the standard for properties not a part of the project.
The town planning commission supported those changes. But the town’s attorney, Daniel Bartholf, advised the board against challenging the law, as did an EDF attorney. Ultimately, the town board rejected the proposed ordinance. Chair Harvey Mandel said in an interview he did not want to approve an ordinance that would invite a lawsuit.
He also dismissed suggestions of unethical conduct by town officials. One board member and a planning commission member recused themselves from the decision process because they hold land leases with EDF. According to Michael Vickerman, Renew Wisconsin Policy Director, the average annual lease for hosting a turbine in Wisconsin is worth roughly $5,000 to $7,000 a year.
Two people stood to speak in favor of the project; about 10 people spoke against. In interviews prior to the meeting, some residents said they have heard people living near turbines can be disturbed by flashing shadows and low-frequency noise from the blades' rotation, causing headaches, nausea, lost sleep and other health issues.
The World Health Organization has identified sound from wind turbines as a health risk, although it acknowledges "very little evidence is available about the adverse health effects of continuous exposure to wind turbine noise."
A farmer in the town of Kendall in Lafayette County, also near the Illinois border, Micah Bahr supports renewable energy; he has an array of solar panels next to his barn. But Bahr spoke against the Jefferson project at the meeting. Bahr lives about three-fourths of a mile from a wind turbine. He believes it is giving him headaches, which vanish when he goes indoors.
"I was wondering why I was getting a headache," he said in an interview at his farm. "Then it dawned on me that there was a … a lull, humming type sound that was coming when the wind comes out of the south."
EDF Development Director PJ Saliterman said in an interview allegations of negative health effects are a 'myth.' "Too often fear and misinformation … from web-based sources are used to drive wedges in communities in between neighbors," he said.
“I’m tired of waking up with a knot in my stomach going through ranges of emotions", Dan Kundert said, who with his wife Linda and their son Brent are Green County dairy farmers who may soon live next to several towering wind turbines. “We just never thought of this area as an industrial area, and the turbines kind of make it that,” she said.
The Kunderts fear they and their dairy cows will suffer health problems from the turbines. Jennifer Van Os, a UW-Madison assistant professor of dairy science, said she knows of no scientific research published on the effects of wind turbines on cattle.
Among the few attendees willing to take a pro-project stand at the Jefferson Town Board meeting were truck driver Tim Bender and wife Linda, a stay-at-home mom. "We have maybe three days out of the year when we don’t have wind. Why shouldn’t we benefit from it?" Tim said; “I just can’t stand to sit back and watch an opportunity pass us by.”
NO! It's A Dairy State Public POWER STRUGGLE -
Industrial Turbines VS Cow Farts?? Place Your Bets, Folks!
RURAL WIND WAR WHIPS UP GREEN COUNTY CONTROVERSY
Proponents Say Project Will Invigorate Town, Help Environment; Others Fear Property Values, Health Will Decline
Edited/Excerpted from Sarah Whites-Koditschek's madison.com Investigative Journalism article:
Cindy Blanc and her husband, Peter Minucci, are freelance musicians who moved to 5 acres in the countryside in south-central Wisconsin for the scenic views and serenity.
Blanc leans against the glass door to her expansive backyard where they see a lot of wildlife, including owls. "This is the best place to watch stars ever because there’s no light out here," she said. "Now we’ll have … flashing lights."
Blanc was referring to EDF Renewables' 24 turbine Sugar River Wind Project proposal, spread over 5,870 acres with the capacity to provide power for 20,000 homes. Currently, wind power provides less than 3% of Wisconsin’s electricity.
Blanc learned about the project from an EDF email. Each nearly 500 feet tall, one turbine tower would be 1,500 feet from the couple’s home in the town of Jefferson, a rural farming community of 1,200 people near the Illinois border in Green County.
As large wind and solar projects have begun cropping up in rural areas the fight between residents and renewable energy is playing out in Wisconsin and other states. Blanc said she is not anti-wind, she just does not think turbines should be close to residences.
"We’re working musicians. We have no pension. We have no retirement. So this 5 acres and this janky old farm house, is like, it," Blanc said. “This is what we’ve worked for our entire lives." Worrying its value will fall, she asks "Who is going to want to buy it living in the shadow of giant, industrial wind?"
In excess of 70 Jefferson community members faced three town board members and the town attorney at an evening board meeting in late February, booing and jeering at times. The board was considering a possible wind ordinance after months of public pressure.
Under law, local governments passing wind ordinances gain the power to regulate, approve or reject a wind project, within bounds set by the state. Some residents like Blanc wanted the town to push the limits of the law and require setbacks from residences greater than the standard for properties not a part of the project.
The town planning commission supported those changes. But the town’s attorney, Daniel Bartholf, advised the board against challenging the law, as did an EDF attorney. Ultimately, the town board rejected the proposed ordinance. Chair Harvey Mandel said in an interview he did not want to approve an ordinance that would invite a lawsuit.
He also dismissed suggestions of unethical conduct by town officials. One board member and a planning commission member recused themselves from the decision process because they hold land leases with EDF. According to Michael Vickerman, Renew Wisconsin Policy Director, the average annual lease for hosting a turbine in Wisconsin is worth roughly $5,000 to $7,000 a year.
Two people stood to speak in favor of the project; about 10 people spoke against. In interviews prior to the meeting, some residents said they have heard people living near turbines can be disturbed by flashing shadows and low-frequency noise from the blades' rotation, causing headaches, nausea, lost sleep and other health issues.
The World Health Organization has identified sound from wind turbines as a health risk, although it acknowledges "very little evidence is available about the adverse health effects of continuous exposure to wind turbine noise."
A farmer in the town of Kendall in Lafayette County, also near the Illinois border, Micah Bahr supports renewable energy; he has an array of solar panels next to his barn. But Bahr spoke against the Jefferson project at the meeting. Bahr lives about three-fourths of a mile from a wind turbine. He believes it is giving him headaches, which vanish when he goes indoors.
"I was wondering why I was getting a headache," he said in an interview at his farm. "Then it dawned on me that there was a … a lull, humming type sound that was coming when the wind comes out of the south."
EDF Development Director PJ Saliterman said in an interview allegations of negative health effects are a 'myth.' "Too often fear and misinformation … from web-based sources are used to drive wedges in communities in between neighbors," he said.
“I’m tired of waking up with a knot in my stomach going through ranges of emotions", Dan Kundert said, who with his wife Linda and their son Brent are Green County dairy farmers who may soon live next to several towering wind turbines. “We just never thought of this area as an industrial area, and the turbines kind of make it that,” she said.
The Kunderts fear they and their dairy cows will suffer health problems from the turbines. Jennifer Van Os, a UW-Madison assistant professor of dairy science, said she knows of no scientific research published on the effects of wind turbines on cattle.
Among the few attendees willing to take a pro-project stand at the Jefferson Town Board meeting were truck driver Tim Bender and wife Linda, a stay-at-home mom. "We have maybe three days out of the year when we don’t have wind. Why shouldn’t we benefit from it?" Tim said; “I just can’t stand to sit back and watch an opportunity pass us by.”