Last weekend I took two staff members and visited the windmill complex in upstate New York. These windmills are located primarily in the towns of Chateaugay, Clinton, and Ellenberg. Each one generates enough electricity to power about 500 homes. There are hundreds planned.
I heard of the windmills in a dairy farm commission hearing last spring, but didn’t realize how big this was until I had occasion in August to pass through these towns on the way back from Canada. They are in people back yards and you can see corn growing or cows grazing right around the windmills. Testimony during the dairy hearings stated that the dairy farmers are sharing the profits form the windmills and most were enthusiastic about their placement. Here in Massachusetts where windmills are controversial, I wonder if we would be so quick to embrace these? If you click on these and enlarge the images, you can see the tops of windmills all around the farm.
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Please accept my apologies that I seem the be the first to comment on almost every thread, but I have a couple of questions.
1) The windmills in Savoy are slated to have a huge buffer (miles?) from any residential property, if I recall correctly. Do the proposals being floated for other areas have similar set-back provisions? That bottom picture with the at least four houses within a couple hundred feet of the turbines strikes me as an extreme example and one that should not be duplicated.
2) To what extent are these windmills allowing the farmers/landowners to remain financially stable? How do you work aesthetics into a cost:benefit ratio? Should visual appeal even be considered on unremarkable rural land?
3) I've heard some stories about the predatory practices of the windmill companies who trick unsophisticated land owners into really lopsided deals. I've also heard of problems where unhappy property abutters have a windmill withing spitting distance of their land. How would MA regulate these transactions?
4) Despite my desired constraints on such developments, I think we would be foolish not to implement something that works for our region.
(And in the right locations, these things are certainly can have a visual grace to them. The turbine on top of Jiminy has become an attraction and landmark all on its own.)
Thanks for the questions:
1. Yes, the windmill projects in our area all have setbacks. No one is suggesting that we do something like this. In New York, each town sets its density. The windmills all have to be spaced as far between each other as the town allows in the agreements. However, the farmers can plant almost right up to the windmill and I saw fields where the cows were grazing right under them. BTW, I was able to hold a conversation right under a spinning blade with no problem.
These things are big. The diameter at the base is 18 feet and the height is, I believe around 380 feet. The blade is between 80 and 120 feet long, depending on the model.
2. I didn’t talk to any of the farmers while I was there, but the person that I talked to was a company employee that used to work for one of the towns. She said the farmers were able to plan their budgets much better than in the past as they share in the net profits of each windmill. I also read a local news article that quotes a few of the farmers as saying that it has allowed them to stay in business and some will make $12,000 for each windmill on average. (This was in the article.) You know how I have blogged about the struggles of our farmers. This is a windfall for farmers having the same struggles in New York. I don’t know how the aesthetics can be part of the cost/benefit analysis. First, I was a little taken back on my first trip through these towns, but on the second trip I was much better prepared for the site and don’t think that they are unpleasant. They are not a scenic vista, but have a certain symmetry that is pretty cool. Second, this is not a big tourism area (although you can see these in the far distance from the Whiteface Mountains.) In fact, our tour guide said that it has generated a fair amount of visitors coming to look at these and they do run tours to see these.
3. The farmers have a say in the windmills and there are a few abutters that are unhappy, but for the most part, people seem satisfied. They cut property taxes substantially in the towns with windmills. The towns have to sign a contract and can discuss all sorts of issues, and the company is repaving roads that the towns haven’t had money to repave. The initial roads to the windmill sites are 60 feet wide, but after the towers are built, the company, we were told, returned these to around 16 feet. The company gets to use these access roads, but the farmers are using them too to get around their farms. As I said, the land still belongs to the farmers and they can plant and graze and use it as they want. Massachusetts is starting to look at regulations as to where we can place these, but I think it would be a joint process between towns and the state.
It seems as if the companies are going to make some money on these and the landowners and towns are sharing this. It also seems like there is enough money to go round on these. I think it behooves the company to work in a fair manner with the landowners as that means more windmills and less hassle.
4. I agree we should do something. It seems that the company in New York has found a way to do these without the usual ten-year appeal and stall process we are currently going through. I hope we can find a few places where we can try to put some of these up. As I said, each one generates enough electricity to power 500 homes. They require a regular maintenance schedule, but these don’t seem expensive and they will run on as little as 5-7 miles per hour wind. We need to try to do what we can to find ways to generate in a green manner and a bunch of these would do that. If we can eliminate the endless appeals, these can be done in a very cost effective manner.
Dan--
I also think that this is an ingenious use of the land... mostly because the cows obviously don't mind the aesthetic change that some Mass. residents do.
My question is, are there regions in Mass that get enough wind to make this worthwhile? Where I am in Middlebury VT they put up a test windmill but the ROI was not worth it.
-Alex
I understand that we have been mapping wind power based on air patterns and there are places where it would be feasible. I understand that there may be state owned land that may be ripe for this. However, we won't know until the mapping is done and test sites actually have test towers placed there for air measurements.
It is interesting that there were towers probably within 100 feet of each other in New York, but while one was spinning, the next one wasn't, or may be facing a different direction. I guess you don't actually know until you have placed test towers on a site.
We are probably a ways away from this at this point, and test towers in New york were up for a couple of years before the actual decisions on towers were made.
I think this is so cool. I love windmills and stop to visit wherever I see one. I wrote a letter to the editor two years ago about how I could stand directly under the one in Hull Ma and have an undisturbed conversation. In fact the sound of the ocean was louder than the windmill. Hull's windmill is about 50 yards from their highschool - that's gotta tell you something.
I won't rehash old arguments, but I would put one in my backyard in a heartbeat if I had the wind.
I would love to see state and federal land opened up to be used by private citizens to erect windmills.
Most of MA does not have sufficient wind for wind mills. According to this wind map, there is sufficient wind in parts of western, central, and coastal MA. My area lacks sufficient wind.
How about a program where I could buy a windmill on state or federal land and get the money generated for feeding the energy into the grid? This would put private dollars to work immediately to reduce our greenhouse emissions,
bell bump, That is a very good idea. It would combine private investment with a government program to promote renewable power. Let's see if we can make that work.
Thanks Dan,
Please keep me let me know if there is anything a mere knuckle-dragger like myself can do. I have blogged about this post and your kind words.
I will send my contact info to your state house email address. You can always get to me via my blog.
Good idea. The FEES generated from private use of public lands should be made to be put into a special account. The rental of such lands, and the monies generated, should go to the municipalities in which they are sited.
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