Gone with the Wind Farm

These days, everyone is in favor of clean energy. But one particular kind - wind power, generated by turbines that are frequently larger than the Statue of Liberty - has triggered a nationwide outcry of NIMBY (“Not In My BackYard”), or, in one case, NOMB (“Not On My Beach”). Typical NIMBY behavior comes from those who oppose a development (landfill, power plant) in their neighborhood, but aren’t opposed to the development in general.

With wind farms, the NIMBY factor is particularly conspicuous. As wind energy has caught on, people across the country - environmentalists and non-environmentalists alike - agree that wind power sounds like a good idea. The American Wind Energy Association says wind farms operate in 30 U.S. states, producing around 11,000 megawatts of power each year, enough to power 3 million average homes. With enough effective wind farms, the state of North Dakota alone could supply one third of the nation’s total energy, according to the association. But nobody - not even North Dakotans - wants wind farms near their property. The turbines can be noisy, critics say. Because they’re so huge (one blade is often 40 meters long) residents worry that turbines near their homes could send property values plummeting. One Illinois woman claimed having a wind turbine 1,500 feet from her house would not only decrease her home’s value, but would also worsen her motion sickness and interfere with her cable reception. 

The loudest and most prolonged of the wind battles began in 2001 off the patrician shores of Cape Cod, where community dissent has delayed an ambitious plan to create America’s first offshore (and the world’s second largest) wind farm. The project, known as Cape Wind, would erect 130 turbines on a shoal in Nantucket Sound just five miles away from the closest beaches.

Energy Management Inc. (EMI), the New England-based company backing the project, expects the turbines to generate 75% of the average electricity needs for Cape Cod as well as the islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket - this in a state and region with an acknowledged energy deficit. But more than five years after the initial proposition, EMI still hasn’t gotten a federal permit. Mark Rogers, director of communication for Cape Wind, attributes this to “a negative, fear-mongering campaign” waged by a particularly vocal (not to mention well-funded and litigious) group of dissidents.

One of the loudest of these local voices is Robert Kennedy, Jr.’s. The irony: Kennedy is a senior environmental lawyer for the New York City-based National Resources Defense Council, which has issued a statement in support of Cape Wind. But Kennedy continues his protests. In an op-ed in the New York Times in late 2005, he said he is in favor of wind farms in “appropriate landscapes,” but that windmill arms reaching 417 feet above the water would be visible for 26 miles. Their bright lights would “steal the stars and nighttime views” from Cape Cod, he wrote. (His family’s famous home is in Cape Cod’s Hyannis Port, and Senator Edward Kennedy has also penned unapologetic op-eds opposing the farm.) A handful of Robert Kennedy’s colleagues in the environmental world have called for his resignation.

Two 2006 polls showed between 70 and 80 percent of Massachusetts residents are in favor of the wind farm, and according to Rogers of Cape Wind, recent polls of Cape Codders show opinion is evenly split. Public hearings will continue until the federal permitting agency makes a decision in early 2008.

Although no other wind project has prompted such extensive, high-profile debate, the arguments over Cape Wind are informing cases around the country. 

Residents of Kingman, Arizona, last year spoke out about the first commercial wind farm in the state, saying it would be too close to their homes. Mike Boyd, of Verde Resources, the developer, says the turbines would be built a mile outside the city limits, and only around 1,000 of the city’s 60,000 citizens would be able to see turbines. The project was set to go up in March 2007, but a variety of complications means it won’t move forward until 2008.

In Bloomington, Illinois, Denise Preller is worried about motion sickness and losing money on her home if Chicago-based Invenergy Wind, LLC, builds 100 turbines nearby. The project’s special permit was approved in February, but Preller and other residents plan to keep fighting. In hearings, they claimed turbines were unproven technologies, likely to fling debris, interfere with crop-dusting planes, and catch fire. “Everyone from George Bush to Barack Obama automatically sees wind power as being good, and that if you’re against it you’re a bad person,” Preller says. “If they’re going to experiment, they should do it in a place that is not populated.”

Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell is so enthused about wind that last year the state offered to place 15 small wind turbines in various locations for free. But a Pennsylvania citizens’ group, Save Our Allegheny Ridges, is concerned that turbines will damage ridgetops, ruin views, harm wildlife, and cause erosion.

Even some Vermonters, known for progressive energy policies and general nutty-crunchiness, are nervous about wind turbines. “Broadly, in Vermont, people support wind power,” says Eric Rosenbloom of an anti-wind goup, Vermonters with Vision. “But the size of these things is startling. People just don’t understand how big they are.”