Offshore Wind Massachusetts

Katie Almeida, fishery policy analyst for The Town Dock, a squid dealer and processor in Rhode Island, said that for two years, her company has been asking for at least five years of pre-construction fishery monitoring, and the conversation has not gone any further. “And now we’re down to what, a year?” she said. “How can we get any meaningful science and study done that’s going to actually hold up to any kind of scrutiny for baseline studies?”

Offshore Wind Massachusetts

A pair of representatives for Enel Green Power and a pair from Kirkham Michael were asked to appear before county commissioners Monday to discuss concerns about roads surrounding the Diamond Vista wind farm.

General Kansas

The disassembly marks at least the third time in the last four years that the Applied turbine — the tallest of the three within the industrial park — has been shut down for an extended period of time.

General Massachusetts

“I’m thrilled,” Kerns said. “The constant whoosh, whoosh, whoosh sound they make is nonstop … and the shadow effect was like I was back in the ’70s with the disco strobe light. “I couldn’t sit outside in the evening,” she added. “Until you live near one, you don’t know what it’s like.”

Impact on People Legal Iowa

Plans to erect giant wind turbines in rural Seneca County drew a large and vocal group of residents again, this time with nearly 500 people packing an old school gymnasium that Scipio Township had purchased and turned into its maintenance building.

General Ohio

No applications for conditional-use permits in connection with commercial wind turbine projects will be accepted for an indefinite period, said Rick Witte McPherson County Administrator. The move was done to allow a comprehensive review of the impact commercial wind turbines may have on the county’s new E-911 emergency system.

Zoning/Planning Kansas

Despite strong and reasonable opposition from the most negatively impacted and least benefiting community of Henderson, the reasonable questions the Watertown Daily Times has asked, despite the Watertown Daily Times editorial against it, the developer and town of Hounsfield continue to push the proposed wind farm on Galloo Island.

General New York

Wallace “Buddy” Sweeney defeated the incumbent Brian Kissel ...Kissel was appointed to his seat on the board in July of this year but has been criticized for his role in approving ordinances that would allow for the permitting of wind turbines in the Summit Lake Wind Project proposed by Renewable Energy Systems (RES).

General Michigan

The clean energy constitutional amendment Proposition 127 is on track to fail by a wide margin, as Arizona voters appear to have rejected a ballot measure that the state’s largest utility company claimed would raise utility bills. ...The measure would have required Arizona utilities to achieve 50 percent of their electricity sales from renewable sources like solar and wind, but not nuclear, by 2030. 

Energy Policy Arizona

Barnstable Superior Court Judge Cornelius Moriarty had deemed the turbines at the town's wastewater treatment facility a nuisance and ordered that they be permanently shut down in June 2017. The selectmen voted not to appeal the decision. ...The Green Center then appealed Moriarty’s ruling to the Massachusetts Appeals Court but again failed to gain any traction, with a panel of three judges upholding Moriarty’s decision.

Legal Massachusetts

With the wind farm project nearly complete, Jon Halbgewachs, senior vice-president at Kirkham Michael Engineereing in Ellsworth, spoke with Marion County Commissioners Monday about roads near the construction areas.

General Kansas

Other residents, like Michael Wootton of Wainscott, were concerned the project was far more extensive than what they were privy to. The fear is that what BOEM is considering has doubled in size since it was first proposed, laying the groundwork for a larger plan. The plan submitted to BOEM suggests the project has grown to a 180-megawatt wind farm with two 230-kilovolt transmission cables coming to shore or to potentially an offshore substation. 

Impact on People Offshore Wind New York

After hearing several hours of public comments over the course of three meetings in the past month, the Ford County Zoning Board of Appeals voted 4-0 to advance to the county board a package of recommended changes to the county’s ordinance regulating wind farms.

Zoning/Planning Illinois

A deadline for a mitigation plan for a proposed wind farm near Hinton has been extended a fourth time. Last month, Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter announced an agreement between NextEra Energy Resources and the Oklahoma Strategic Military Planning Commission to halt construction of a wind farm at the moment.

Safety Oklahoma

The Massachusetts Appeals Court upheld a lower court's decision to deny intervention involving action between the town of Falmouth and the Falmouth zoning board of appeals in which judgment had already entered. The judgment declared that two wind turbines operated by the town were a nuisance and ordered that their operation cease and desist. The proposed interveners claimed that they were entitled to intervention as of right because they had compelling interests that were no longer being adequately represented by the town. The lower court ruled, and the appellate court affirmed that the motion be denied since the interveners could not likely establish standing, and that the motion was untimely. A portion of the 10-page order is provided below. The full order can be accessed by clicking the links on this page.

Legal Massachusetts

Finally, the commission complained that ratepayers will bear the financial brunt of a project that won’t, under any scenario in Dominion’s long-term energy plan, be competitive with other resources for the next 25 years.

Offshore Wind Virginia

Union Township voters will be asked Tuesday should the Township Board adopt an ordinance to create a planning commission pursuant to the Michigan Planning Enabling Act of 2008.

General Michigan

Ford County, about 90 minutes south of Chicago by car, has had a moratorium on new wind development since last fall, after opposition was raised to existing regulations calling for 1,000-foot setbacks from any primary building. The county board’s zoning committee held meetings seeking input and recommended setbacks of 2,250 feet from buildings. Now the zoning board of appeals is considering revisions to the regulations, and their recommendations will be passed on to the full county board, which can make further revisions.

General Illinois

The timberlands are owned by Weyerhaeuser, so the lease payments would go to one company alone.  That's different from most wind farms, which pay many landowners for the right to place wind turbines on their land.

General Michigan