Somewhere behind the universal belief that wind will someday help provide some of the energy we need lurk some intriguing questions, many of them never before answered in quite the way the New Windsor Planning Board could find useful. ...Until we and New Windsor know a bit more about the impact these turbines will have in the back and other yards, it would be better to wait.

Somewhere behind the universal belief that wind will someday help provide some of the energy we need lurk some intriguing questions, many of them never before answered in quite the way the New Windsor Planning Board could find useful.

Members of the board and other town officials, therefore, are more or less on their own as they try to decide who can put up a wind harvesting device, how that device fits in with the neighborhood, when it amounts to a nuisance and when it constitutes some sort of right.

It would not be unreasonable or even unwise for the board to declare some sort of moratorium, waiting for a consensus on safety and technology of the sort that usually is well established before the application of local laws. The Planning Board lawyer put it rather well the other day when he noted that wind turbine towers "have the potential for falling down, which would not be a good thing."

There are other good reasons for the town officials to wait, especially the notion that this is not any kind of emergency. It would be far worse for New Windsor or any other municipality on the forefront of wind law to impose either unnecessary restrictions or inadequate safety requirements in a rush to accommodate what now amount to a few requests for approval.

Those who believe that backyard wind turbines are a good idea for any reason will be certain to feel they are victims of the NIMBY syndrome, the tendency of neighbors to welcome benefits of some new structure or device as long as it is not located in their backyard. Cell phones create a similar divide, with fans of better service and more bars not very happy when the necessary towers become fixtures on the local landscape.

Local officials need to respond that just because NIMBY has become an all-purpose term to describe hypocritical opposition, it is not necessarily bad. There are things that do not belong in backyards and things that belong only in some backyards. That's what zoning and planning laws and boards are supposed to guide. Until we and New Windsor know a bit more about the impact these turbines will have in the back and other yards, it would be better to wait.

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