NEWBURYPORT - As the state pushes wind energy and communities create guidelines to accommodate it, those living in the shadow of Mark Richey's wind turbine wonder if the effort is at their expense.

The Richey turbine meets the general spirit of the state's guidelines as well as the city's current wind turbine bylaw, under which Richey received a special permit that allows a turbine in an industrial zone to be at least 300 feet from a residential zone.

In fact, none of the homes is closer than 500 feet. Yet problems that the guidelines were meant to anticipate - like noise and the "flicker" effect caused by shadows cast by the blades - are affecting the neighbors, they say.

As the city takes a closer look at its wind ordinance, neighbors are arguing that the rules most officials are accepting as well thought out are out of sync with reality. Turbines like Richey's, which towers over the city's skyline, are being allowed far too close to homes, neighbors say.

More cities and towns are putting wind turbine ordinances in place, hoping to regulate how the structures affect their surroundings. The biggest impacts reported are noise and a flicker effect, caused when the sun goes up and down and light is "flickered" through the turbine's blades.

Local officials say the current ordinance is based on models used throughout the state and across the country. Most ordinances are catered to each community's layout and topography.

Newbury, for instance, is preparing guidelines of its own for May Town Meeting. For taller wind turbines like Richey's, the required setback would be 1.5 times the overall height of the structure.

Similarly, under the model bylaw from the state, the suggested setback for a turbine is equal to 1.5 times the overall blade tip height of the turbine from the nearest existing residential or commercial structure.

Under those guidelines, Richey's turbine would be required to have a setback of 438 feet - nearly 50 yards more than Newburyport currently requires.

In the wake of public outcry from homeowners in the Back Bay neighborhood, city councilors are reviewing the ordinance they just adopted last May.

Neighbors want the City Council to pay particular attention to "setbacks," the closest distance property lines can be from the structure. The 300-foot buffer is just too close, they said; they advocate for a half-mile distance. Among their evidence are recent studies presented at a conference in Michigan last year that show people who live within 1,000 feet of a turbine suffer sleep disruption and other health effects.

Ward 4 Councilor Ed Cameron, who sponsored the initial ordinance along with at-large Councilor Barry Connell, said putting a half mile setback in place would essentially mean not allowing any more turbines to go up in the city, since space is too limited to allow that. Cameron is the chairman of the council's Planning and Development subcommittee reviewing the ordinance.

"I think we have to look at that," he said.

The Newburyport City Council passed the ordinance last May to encourage the use of the alternative power source for businesses in the city and to guide how they are built.

The 13-page document detailed the guidelines for turbine construction: the design, the environmental standards, the locations and its distance from residential zones. The ordinance allows only for construction of turbines in industrial zones, not residential, and it requires a special permit.

Cameron said he plans to visit the neighborhood during the times when neighbors say flicker is worst and will further study the noise impact, noting it depends on what direction is the wind is coming from and background noise like traffic.

"The days I've been there, I could faintly hear it, but only if I was really listening for it," he said. "I heard it more when the wind kind of died down."

Ward 2 Councilor Greg Earls, who asked his fellow councilors to again review the ordinance, said the issues that have been raised by neighbors are "unintended consequences that no one foresaw."

"I think it's a good start," he said of the review.

Other laws

In drafting the current ordinance, Cameron said city officials used wind turbine ordinances from other communities, including Gloucester and Cape Cod, and the state's model for the ordinance, as they drafted their own measure. But by most accounts, those rules are applied to each community differently.

Gregg Cademartori, the planning director for Gloucester, said the city took about six months to finish its ordinance, adopted a few years ago. Gloucester officials also used the state model and ordinances adopted by other communities in drafting theirs, he said. Gloucester has two versions on the ordinance, for commercial land and residential land.

Issues such as flicker, noise and setbacks were raised during public hearings for three smaller turbines that have gone up in residential areas, Cademartori said. Setbacks vary according to where the turbine is going - commercial or residential property.

In Gloucester, the minimum distance for a turbine from property lines shared with abutting properties is set at 150 feet; and it can't be less than the length of an individual rotor blade measured from the hub of the wind turbine.

Steven Clarke, the director of wind development for the state's Division of Energy Resources, said the model bylaw was created in a joint effort with the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs a few years ago. It was updated last fall.

But Clarke said the state doesn't suggest a "hard and fast rule" for setbacks, noting that the primary consideration is noise.

The section of the model that focuses on noise states that the wind turbine should not be more than 10 decibels above ambient - 10 decibels is about the sound of rustling leaves, 20 decibels is a whisper - or if it produces a "pure tone," Clarke said.

The main objective was to provide some objective criteria on location, Clarke said. Before the state model, there was different information on the location a turbine, and some of it conflicted.

"The state wanted to make it easier for towns to site these facilities," he said.

The state put together a set of criteria they could easily adopt without having to spend time and resources on their own. State officials used a variety of sources in drafting the model, including information form the University of Massachusetts Energy Center and the American Wind Energy Association, Clarke said.

Twenty-five cities and towns have wind turbine ordinances, but not all of those communities have turbines that have been put up, Clarke said.

Clarke said the DOER does keep a close watch on wind turbine installations and follows up when hearing of issues relating to a particular installation.