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Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Environment - "A Growing Source of Clean Energy, Wind Farms Are Blowing Ill Will Among Some Neighbors"

From the February 2010 ABA Journal, a lengthy story by Kristin Choo that includes the following:

“They told us that the noise at 900 feet would be no louder than the hum of a refrigerator,” says Hal Graham. But he says the reality has been far different. “We can’t sleep. We can’t watch TV. This has been a disaster for us and our neighbors.”

Wind power is one of the current darlings of the movement to find alternative energy sources, and in 2008 the United States surpassed Germany as the world’s leading producer of electricity generated by wind. “With the right government policies, this cost-effective source of energy could provide at least 20 percent of the nation’s electricity by 2030, create thousands of jobs, and revitalize farms and rural communities—without consuming any natural resource or emitting any pollution or greenhouse gases,” says the American Wind Energy Association on its website.

But an increasingly vocal minority says there is another, more sinister, side to wind power. They acknowledge that, from a distance, the towering sentinels seem to spin lightly and noiselessly in the wind. But closer up, they insist, turbines emit stomach-jarring whooshes and rumbles, and an impossible-to-ignore rhythmic hum that disrupts sleep and causes headaches, nausea and fatigue in some people.

Another problem is shadow flicker, caused when the spinning blades chop up sunlight, creating a swooping pattern of shadows that some people say makes them woozy and sick. * * *

The growing contentiousness over the health effects of wind turbines already has resulted in some sharp legal fights —with more sure to come—over where turbines should be located and how they should be regulated. And because wind power can be harnessed most efficiently in wide-open spaces—the largest wind farms contain hundreds of turbines—the task of sorting out these issues has fallen primarily on local government bodies representing communities such as Cohocton.

According to a U.S. Chamber of Commerce webpage titled “Project No Project,” which tracks energy projects that have been stalled or killed, more than 70 wind farm proposals around the country are bogged down by moratoriums, restrictive ordinances, environmental challenges and lawsuits filed by community groups.

Although the states and even the federal government are inexorably being drawn into the issue, for now it is local government taking the lead to craft ordinances and zoning regulations that try to answer questions like these: When it comes to placing wind turbines near residences, how close is too close? And how loud is too loud?

Under the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, land use generally is regulated at the local level through the police power of towns, cities and counties to protect the health, safety and general welfare of their residents, says Glenn M. Stoddard, an attorney in Eau Claire, Wis., who has helped local governments in his state develop wind ordinances.

Generally, a local government can’t just ban an industry outright, Stoddard says. “There’s a zoning doctrine that basically prohibits what we call ‘exclusionary zoning’ in which a local government simply discriminates against a certain type of land use,” he says. There must be a rational reason for restricting an industry that is related to the health, safety or general welfare of the populace.

This is a tricky standard when it comes to regulating noise.

The article includes a link to the Wind Power Law Blog.

Here is a long list of earlier ILB entries on wind turbines.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on February 16, 2010 07:51 AM
Posted to Environment