Opinions
This necessary transition would likely be far more robust and less worrisome about negative environmental impacts if it were guided by a broad set of rules based on sound science to protect both the environment and the public interest.
Spokesman Rudy Husband says Norfolk Southern is merely considering and has not yet decided whether to build a 200- to 225-foot wind turbine at its Enola freight yard, which borders the Susquehanna River, to power a new wastewater treatment facility.
While we have warned often against turning Pennsylvania's signature and still largely green ridge tops into wind farms, windmills appear to be well-suited to be built in a number of situations. These would include railroad yards, industrial parks, open farmlands, tall buildings in cities, brown-field sites and abandoned surface mining areas. In our view, wind power is part of the energy solution, if appropriately sited.
News of the Enola windmill, which would be the first of such size in the midstate, promptly generated concerns that it might have negative consequences for Pennsylvania's only colony of great egrets on nearby Wade Island. Black-crowned night herons and cormorants also call the island home. It isn't known whether a windmill at the freight yard would pose a danger to these birds.
If Pennsylvania had a scientifically sound and open windmill-siting process, possible conflicts such as this would be independently researched and decided. Without a legal framework to properly evaluate and make a determination, no one is well served -- not the public, not the wind industry, not those who want to take advantage of this technology, and certainly not the environment.
We need a sound windmill-siting process in Pennsylvania -- and need it soon -- both to advance this energy technology and to protect the environment.
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