Substance vs. Style

This month the industry trade magazine North American Windpower published Ben Kelahan's essay "Prevailing Against Anti-Wind Sentiment" where Mr. Kelahan coaches wind developers on how to recognize and maneuver around local opposition groups. He warns "All it takes is an emotional trigger on a critical local issue" to provoke the same faceless cast of characters espousing the same tired NIMBY complaints. He mentions the nameless "anti-wind" websites that broadcast variants of the same arguments on why wind is a bad idea for every community.

Remarkably, Mr. Kelahan's focus is entirely on tactics. It's all about getting to the right people first, controlling the message, and keeping the very small, but very vocal minority of "anti's" in check. At no point in his essay does it occur to him, nor, presumably to his readers, that those asking questions about a project may actually have valid concerns.

This week's news covered several high-profile events that suggest others outside of Mr. Kelahan's circle may be seeing a different, more substantive debate pertaining to wind farm siting -- Substance over style -- instead of Mr. Kelahan's preferred "Style over substance".

1) In North Carolina, state senators are deliberating on a bill which -- as currently written -- will ban large-scale wind energy facilities in the western mountains. Three of the four democratic mountain senators are holding firm in their support of the bill. Sen. Martin Nesbitt told the press "allowing large wind turbines would destroy our crown jewel". An editorial in the local paper, which agrees with the turbine restrictions, made its case this way: "The locus of the debate isn't over wind power itself, but of size, scale and most of all - location. ... Here in the mountains, the challenges of wind farms are the challenges these mountains have faced for decades; how much change can be wrought before the fundamental nature, the very culture, of the mountains becomes lost? This goes beyond aesthetics. Wind farms require roads to move construction equipment, transmission lines to transport the power, etc."

2) In Ontario, the Oxford County Federation of Agriculture (OCFA) requested an interim control bylaw that would prevent any wind farms from being built within the county. OFCA president John Van Dorp told the press that his organization is doing "whatever we feel we can [to] stop development until such time as the medical concerns are (studied). More and more we're starting to have health issues in other areas that are (wind-farm) developments" Stating that OFCA has concerns about minimum setback distances he added, "We didn't initially support the (not-in-my-backyard) people, but maybe there's a valid reason why they don't want it in their backyards."

3) In Wyoming, the field office of the US Fish and Wildlife Service adopted a firm position opposing wind farms in Wyoming's core sage grouse population areas. Field office supervisor Brian Kelly makes clear in his letter to the State's Game and Fish Department that "Constructing wind farms in core areas, even for research purposes, prior to demonstrating it can be done with no impact to sage grouse, negates the usefulness of the core area concept as a conservation strategy and brings into question whether adequate regulatory mechanisms are in place to protect the species". The rules restricting development in the core area were developed in hopes of preventing the federal government from listing the sage grouse as a federally endangered or threatened species. The Service is unwilling to support mitigation options or ongoing scientific study concurrent with building and operating projects. 

4) In Australia, the press ignored a significant ruling by the federal government that declared the Stockyard Hill wind energy facility "could have a significant impact on protected species and communities". By this declaration, the project will now be subject to closer scrutiny requiring further detailed studies by the developer rather than relying on its initial submissions. In other news, the Hepburn Shire Council adopted wind turbine siting guidelines that require a minimum of 2km between any wind turbines and private homes.

There's no question this debate will continue in communities around the world. Despite the news of this week, we suspect Mr. Kelahan will continue to recommend "tactics as usual". We also suspect that he, and others, will likely never understand why wind energy development drives everyday people to take extraordinary actions in order to protect their "backyard".