Storm brewing over rise of wind turbines
NORTH SMITHFIELD (Rhode
Island): Even as Rhode Island makes history as the first US state with an offshore wind farm, its people are not so fond of wind turbines sprouting up on land near where they live.
Dreams of a wind-powered nation sparked by the pioneering Atlantic Ocean project are running aground back on shore, where conventional battles over aesthetics and property values have stymied wind projects here and around the country.
Ruth Pacheco said she didn’t expect so much hostility when she invited a developer to build a giant wind turbine in the forest hill at her 21ha farm in North Smithfield.
The 86-year-old proprietor of the Hi-on-a-Hill Herb Farm believes harvesting wind energy is the best way to preserve the land her family has owned and cultivated since the 1840s. But she wasn’t prepared for the dozens of “No Turbine” signs, erected outside nearly every home on the road leading up to her farm.
“We’ve lived here all our lives and seen people come and go,” Pacheco said. “I guess you just can’t take it personally. They’ve got tunnel vision out there.”
Responding to the ire of Pacheco’s neighbours, North Smithfield leaders are now drafting a townwide ban on wind turbines, though it is too late to affect Pacheco’s project because it already has a permit.
Compared with the five-turbine, 30-megawatt offshore wind farm recently completed in blustery state waters and scheduled to switch on this fall, Rhode Island’s 20 landbased wind turbines are more modest generators of energy, with a combined capacity of about 21 megawatts, enough to power more than 6,000 homes, or a small town about the size of North Smithfield.
US Energy Department records show Texas and California have the most turbines, each with more than 10,000. The two big states vie with smaller windswept plains states in producing the most wind energy. Iowa, Oklahoma, Illinois, Kansas and Minnesota are the leaders.
Pacheco’s neighbours said their concerns include noise, maintenance and “shadow flicker”, the blinking effect that occurs during parts of the year when the sun rises or sets behind the spinning blades. They are also concerned about the height, which at 126m would be almost as tall as Rhode Island’s tallest building, a 26-storey Providence skyscraper.
On a recent visit to Pacheco’s farm, a wild turkey strolled beneath a mulberry tree as the proprietor and her two daughters showed off the property where they still live in three adjacent houses.
Cattle once roamed its pastures, but the farm is now focused on herbs, dried everlastings, chickens, beehives and educational programmes. The family has also worked with the government to plant native grass and wildflowers and tend the property’s expansive woodland as part of a decade-long forestry management project.
None of the agricultural harvest can match the US$54,000 (RM218,159) annually promised by a 25-year lease agreement Pacheco signed with Wind Energy Development, the North Kingstown company that has installed many of the wind turbines in the state.
“It will ensure that the girls can maintain the land for future generations,” Pacheco said. “We may not be here, but we hope the footprint will be here for someone to enjoy.” — AP