Beware the "anti-wind zealots"

Frank Maisano, spokesperson for wind energy developers in the State of Maryland, wrote a letter to Maryland's Times-News paper calling on "anti-wind zealots" to "stop delaying the potential opportunities that provide such important economic and environmental benefits." In his letter, Maisano suggests that concerns expressed by Maryland residents relating to turbine safety, noise, and the environment are unfounded and that Maryland's "zealots" own sole responsibility for why the State is behind its neighbors, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, in numbers of turbines installed. Currently, Maryland has no operating wind facilities.

Maisano's letter comes on the heels of another by Steven Sullivan, public relations adviser to wind developers, where Sullivan pokes fun, insults, and belittles those who worry about the impacts of multiple, massive towers built within 2500-feet of the wall of their homes. He scoffs at Dr. Nina Pierpont's investigation into the growing body of complaints from residents experiencing health problems after living near the turbines and grumbles that a "cadre of organized, technologically savvy, anti-wind organizations" is spreading misinformation and lies about wind faster than proponents can respond. 

Maisano's and Sullivan's comments are remarkable in their utter indifference to what's happening around them.

This week's Wind Alert! newsletter itself features more than ten items relating to health, safety, and environmental impacts of big wind with titles including: "Something in the wind as mystery illnesses rise" (Japan), "Environmental concerns roadblock to renewable energy" (USA), "Farmer vs. Missouri's First Wind Farm" (Missouri) and "Doctor calls for health studies on windmill farms" (Canada). Windaction.org has collected volumes of substantiated material addressing the potential risks and actual impacts of industrial-scale wind towers on people and the environment.

For decades, wind energy development worldwide represented little more than a niche market, despite billions paid out in public dollars necessary to keep the industry afloat. Even today, following record growth in the last three years, wind energy contributes nominal amounts to U.S. energy needs -- at around 1% -- and without continued infusions of public funds the industry would collapse.

Every electric power plant online in the United States, including hydroelectric and other renewable facilities, is subject to enormous regulatory oversight. As new projects are proposed, environmental and citizen groups fill the hearing rooms exercising their right to participate. The laws allow for public involvement and, while project proponents may not like or believe the evidence submitted, they expect compromise and often times respect the bright lines they should not cross. When agreement cannot be met, all sides recognize that appeals are a legal, rightful part of the process.

Apparently, wind energy developers and their advisers do not believe they should be held to the same standards regardless their assertions that wind is a mainstream option for electric generation. Instead they rely on scrappy, mean-spirited tactics typically resorted to by those on the losing side of a debate.

Back in 2007 when Congress was considering establishing standards for wind energy development that would provide protections for wildlife resources, industry advocates vehemently denounced the action claiming such provisions would destroy the wind market. The words of Maisano and Sullivan reveal the same thinking at play today, even after the industry's successes of 2008. But efforts to deny that people and the environment are being harmed by the turbines or using megaphones to shout down their concerns will not make the problems go away.

Windaction.org has to wonder why Frank Maisano, in particular, is upset with the residents in Maryland for expressing their concerns. Maisano knows full well that passage of Senate Bill SB 566 (2007), designed to fast-track approval of wind facilities sized at 70 MW or under, essentially prohibited public engagement beyond a token hearing called by the Maryland Public Service Commission (MD PSC). He ignores the fact that the MD PSC, the State's Office of Public Counsel and the Department of Natural Resources all testified against SB 566 and that under the law, there is no role for the MD PSC to consider public safety, the economy of the State, the conservation of natural resources, or the preservation of environmental quality as normally would be required with the issuance of a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (CPCN). 

Mr. Maisano's active lobbying in Maryland has successfully bound the hands of the very governmental bodies slated to protect the interests of the State's residents and its wildlife - and he calls members of the public "anti-wind zealots"!

Since enactment of SB 566, the MD PSC has given a green light to one wind energy facility and the groundwork has been laid for a second to be approved.

The first was Clipper Wind's re-application to the MD PSC last March, which allowed the project to "escape" the permit conditions placed on an original 101-MW wind facility when it received a CPCN in 2003. The MD PSC had little choice but to fast-track Clipper under SB 566 when it reapplied with a 70 MW plan (twenty-eight 2.5-MW turbines) to be built on Backbone Mountain a few miles north on the same ridge as occupied by the Mountaineer wind facility in West Virginia. FPL Energy's Mountaineer project, with 44 turbines, is well known for slaughtering thousands of bats yearly.

The second proposal likely to be approved by the MD PSC is slated for Dan's Mountain in Allegany County, MD atop a high ridge that is regionally recognized as being part of the Allegheny Front. The fast-tracking of these wind facilities left no opportunity for an evidentiary hearing or for the human and environmental impacts of the projects to be fully considered.

Mr. Maisano and Mr. Sullivan are not unique. Windaction.org finds evidence of their tactics throughout the United States such as in Maine, New York, Ohio, and Wisconsin where State legislation has been put forth to limit the rights of the public to be heard on wind proposals. The attraction of wind energy development comes with costly impacts. Until the wind industry acknowledges this fact -and- takes the necessary steps to avoid or minimize negative impacts, the ranks of "anti-wind zealots" will continue to swell.