Township Votes Down Wind Energy Project

Voters in Huron County’s Meade Township have given a big thumbs down to a prospective Detroit Edison wind energy project. On May 5, voters rejected a proposal to allow Detroit Edison to erect up to 48 wind turbines in the township. The vote was 222 to 147, which is slightly more than a 60 percent to 40 percent margin.

Special significance might be attached to the election because it took place in Huron County, which has more wind turbines than all of Michigan’s other counties combined. Huron County has recently declared a temporary moratorium on further wind development while its officials work on adopting tighter siting restrictions for turbines.

In November, the Meade Township board voted 4-1 to approve the project. In reaction, local residents gathered enough signatures to place the issue on the ballot and have the board’s decision overturned.

"The Meade vote was no surprise at all,” said Kevon Martis director of the Interstate Informed Citizens Coalition (IICC), a nonprofit organization that is concerned about the construction of wind turbines in the region. “When the people who will actually live inside wind energy plants get to vote on whether they prefer their community as it has been since time immemorial or covered with dozens of 50-story noisy mechanical devices, peace and tranquillity wins every time.”

“In every Michigan township that has ever had the opportunity to vote on wind, the ratio of voters who disapprove to those who approve is always the same: roughly 60 percent opposed, 40 percent in favor,” Martis added. “Take away the wind lease money and the ratio would be more like 85 percent opposed to 15 percent in favor.”

Following the election, The Huron Daily Tribune quoted Detroit Edison's spokesman Scott Simons saying that the utility was disappointed by the election result and is now “exploring different sites outside of Huron County.” Simons was also quoted pointing out that the proposed wind plant was part of the company's “commitment to a state mandate requiring utilities to generate 10 percent from renewable energy sources.”

Simons was referring to Michigan's renewable energy mandate, which was passed by the Legislature and signed into law in 2008. That mandate requires that 10 percent of the state's energy be produced by in-state renewable energy sources by 2015. However, the term “renewable energy sources” has virtually become a euphemism for wind energy. Though the mandate was ostensibly aimed at reducing carbon emissions, the law did not require that emissions be monitored to measure whether the mandate is having any impact on the level of emission.

This year, the Legislature is reviewing the law and changes to it are expected. For example, lawmakers might eliminate the requirement that only energy produced in-state can satisfy the mandate. Such a change would allow utilities to purchase electricity from wind energy projects in other states, such as Iowa, where wind energy is more efficient, cheaper, and turbines can be erected further away from the residences.

In Michigan and elsewhere, wind plants erected near homes have spurred health and safety complaints and lawsuits. These include allegations that turbines cause dizziness, sleeplessness, headaches and other physical symptoms because of the noise, which is not limited to audible sound. Vibrations and flickering lights are also frequently cited as causing problems for people living in proximity to wind turbines. Some critics have cited negative effects on property values.

In 2012 Michigan voters rejected Proposal 3 by a vote of 62 to 38 percent. That statewide initiative, sponsored by environmentalists and wind industry interests, would have increased the 10 percent mandate to 25 percent. In the current Legislature, a majority of Democratic lawmakers has co-sponsored identical bills in both the House and Senate to increase the mandate to 20 percent.

Central.

Big Blow rolls into town and make promises to local officials that they have no plan of keeping. They even "help" the local politicos write the wind ordinances.

Several of the officials that ok'd the first (and only) windfarm, were primaried out last year.

Here's coverage from wind-watch.org of a letter from one of the county commissioners that has made the rounds in several communities across the country...

“What happened with our county was, of course, we knew this wind development was probably imminent because of what happened in Benton County. They were the front-runners,” Harper said. “We kind of understood it might be coming … In 2008, Tipton County developed a wind ordinance and it was based on, basically, what Benton County had done. I think, really, Benton County kind of developed the template for wind ordinances in Indiana. They had put this setback of 1,000 feet, and of course, since no one really knew anything about it, everybody kind of adopted that standard 1,000 foot setback.”

“We did our due diligence,” she said. “We visited Benton County, we visited White County. Everything was positive, but we just didn’t understand how a higher population density, with the turbines, how that would affect the people because in those counties, it wasn’t present. So everything we heard was very, very positive.”

“I was personally not for covering the county with wind turbines, like Benton County did. I just didn’t believe everyone in the county would aesthetically want that. A lot of people in our county just like the rural landscape,” Harper said. “I was not opposed to perhaps trying it in one section of the county. The landowners seemed to want it and nobody really knew anything about it, as far as being opposed to it, so we went through the whole process with the public hearings and there was a little resistance, but not really too much. So we went through with it.”

“What people didn’t know or understand was in Benton County, the 1,000-foot setback is probably fine because their population density is only about 25 people per square mile. They’re low. That was really not factored in for counties that higher population densities, because you wouldn’t have known that because you haven’t experienced it yet.

It wasn’t then, until they went up, the people that were close to them that were not participating landowners, the effects they were having were presented to us. Then I realized what we had done to those people that were not participating landowners.

“I heard it all,” she said. “I heard all the spin, that all these claims about property values are bogus, that property values might decline within the first year but then after that, people get used to it. The shadow flicker, oh, at 1,000 feet, that’s not true. The noise, no, if they’re too noisy, we’ll fix it. I heard all that bunk. It just plain isn’t true.

“I have been in those people’s homes. I have been out there and it is a reality,” Harper continued. “I’ve been in their living rooms and I’ve seen it. It’s like, on some of them, back in the ‘70s in a disco, with a strobe light. That is their reality. Those are the things, when the wind companies say all this stuff, it sounds really good, but I know what the reality is, because I know what these people are putting up with.

“The noise, sometimes you can’t hear anything. It’s like a whoosh,” she added. “It depends on what the weather conditions are. Sometimes you’ll drive up next to a tower on a country road and you won’t hear a thing. But other times, it will sound like dogs are barking, or gears are grinding, or it’s an eerie, creepy sound. It just depends on what the weather conditions are. Sometimes, it sounds like if you’re outside and you hear a jet fly over. That’s what it sounds like, except when a jet goes over, it goes over and it goes away. But this stays. It’s constant. It’s that loud roar above you that’s just constant. Those kinds of things will grate on your nerves, and that’s what these people are experiencing. That’s why the setback, to me, of 1,000 feet, is not enough.”

“A half-mile would probably mitigate the shadow flicker,” Harper said. “As far as the aesthetic view, it won’t, because another 1,000 feet for a tower 500 feet tall, you’re going to see it.”

“Knowing now, what it has done to our community, that’s why I’m now so against (wind projects). I have seen how it has torn our community apart, because it pitted neighbors against neighbors, families against families, in this fight over ‘look what you did to me.’ I just felt like there is no amount of money that was worth doing that to personal relationships,” she said. “The reminders of these towers being up for 30 years, that will always be present. In communities, if you have some hot-button issue, it goes away with time, it fades … because people kind of forget. But with (turbines), they are a constant reminder of ‘look what you did to me.’ That’s what I feel so badly about.”

“The other thing that really bothered me about the companies is they say, oh, we’re going to bring 200 construction jobs and 10 permanent jobs, and all this,” Harper said. “Well, guess what? There’s nobody in our county that was qualified to do these 10 permanent jobs, and with the 200 construction jobs, they said it would be 200 local jobs. Now, as a commissioner, if I’m trying to get the best deal for the county, I’m thinking when they say local jobs, it must mean from our county.

“After the project got going, I contacted the representative … and I asked for a list of all the people from Tipton County who got a construction job, who were able to be gainfully employed by this project,” she continued. “There wasn’t really anybody that got a job on this project that was from Tipton County.”

“They’re not really lying, but they’re not telling the whole story, either,”

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