TOWN OF BYRON - Retired mail carrier Gerry Meyer said he only sleeps two hours a night because of the constant swooshing sound and that his wife has started taking sleep medication.

His neighbor Nick Gonnering in South Byron, who lives just as close to the noise, said he finds the sound "relaxing."

Either way, the sound of wind turbines is making more ears perk up as a bill moves forward in the Legislature that would empower the Public Service Commission to create statewide rules governing wind power and pre-empt local government control over their placement.

The rules would govern the distance between turbines and homes along with their noise and the flicker effects of shadows from their turbine blades.

The bill's supporters say the current local ordinances on wind turbines are a patchwork of differing and sometimes unduly restrictive rules that are holding up development of wind farms here.

"(Developers) think Wisconsin rules are really backwards," said Shahla Werner, director of the state Sierra Club-John Muir Chapter.

Behind other states in region

Wisconsin in 2007 trailed Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois in the amount of renewable energy produced, according to a June 2009 report from the federal Energy Information Administration, with Minnesota producing almost twice as much.

There was a planned 99-megawatt wind power project near the town of Mishicot in Manitowoc County, but the original developer, Navetas Energy Management, and a succeeding company have given up on it.

Jenny Heinzen, lead instructor for the wind energy technology program at Lakeshore Technical College, served on the advisory committee to the Manitowoc County board, which passed two ordinances that effectively ended the Mishicot project.

One of the ordinances mandated a turbine had to be 1,000 feet from the nearest property line. The common standard is 1,000 feet from the nearest home, Heinzen said.

The other ordinance said no turbine could be louder than five decibels on a calm day, or comparable to the noise a single cricket makes, Heinzen said. The typical standard is 50 decibels in the state - about as loud as a face to face conversation.

Heinzen, also the board president for the pro-wind power group RENEW Wisconsin, said Wisconsin is losing out to states like Iowa and Minnesota because of these local ordinances.

According to a June 2009 report from the Pew Charitable Trusts, Wisconsin is losing clean energy jobs at a rate of 0.6 percent per year compared with a 1.4 percent growth rate in Minnesota.

Noise and other effects

Connie Reich of the town of Byron in Fond du Lac County said she felt like she had no say in the wind project near her home. But, she said developer Invenergy does give $500 every December to her and other people in the community and that residents with turbines on their land get paid significantly more.

"If I had a choice, I'd rather have a turbine than a subdivision," Reich said.

Byron resident Gerry Meyer said the noise has led to sleep loss and, as a result, high blood pressure.

"This wind factory has completely taken away our quality of life. We can rarely go outside without being stressed by the various sounds," Meyer said in an e-mail.

Timothy Allen, professor of botany and environmental studies at UW-Madison and an expert on renewable energy, said any health effects are likely self-induced and psychological.

"I think it's people who don't want their skyline messed up," Allen said.

Nick Gonnering, who lives a few blocks from Meyer, said he has experienced no health problems from the turbines and neighbor Connie Reich said she had not either.

Sharon Wunsch of Byron said she has had no health problems but that the turbine noise can disturb her sleep. She said the shadow flicker effect produced by turbines blades at times can be annoying. Wunsch said she and her husband were moving from their home earlier than they previously planned because of the turbines.

"We're ruining our landscape. Wisconsin is such a beautiful state and we are not making it look any better," Wunsch said.

Status of bill now

Sen. Kathleen Vinehout, D-Alma, said she was not sure if she could vote for the bill in its current form. Vinehout supported an amendment to the bill adopted in a Senate committee that requires the Public Service Commission to create a citizens' advisory council to give local community feedback.

Vinehout said Wisconsin should look more at biomass energy and facilities that can convert manure into fuel rather than wind farms. She also said any bill needs to take into account possible environmental impacts of wind projects on places like the Mississippi River where many birds migrate near each year, though currently larger projects or those near protected areas often have to do environmental studies beforehand.

Both the Assembly and Senate versions of the bill passed out of committee by wide margins.