Barrington School Committee delays vote on wind turbine
Providence Journal|C. Eugene Emery Jr.|October 3, 2008
The School Committee last night decided to put off a vote on whether to remove the high school from contention as a location for a proposed turbine. ...School Committee members agreed to take up the turbine matter at its Oct. 16 meeting. That group is expected to recommend an alternative site at the end of Legion Way, which would essentially make the school committee's rejection of the high school site unnecessary. ...And because the device would be as close as 190 feet from a school building, the committee has been under pressure to withdraw its approval of the high school site.
The School Committee last night decided to put off a vote on whether to remove the high school from contention as a location for a proposed turbine. ...School Committee members agreed to take up the turbine matter at its Oct. 16 meeting. That group is expected to recommend an alternative site at the end of Legion Way, which would essentially make the school committee's rejection of the high school site unnecessary. ...And because the device would be as close as 190 feet from a school building, the committee has been under pressure to withdraw its approval of the high school site.
The School Committee last night decided to put off a vote on whether to remove the high school from contention as a location for a proposed turbine.
The delay came because the Town Council is expected to get a recommendation on Monday from its Committee for Renewable Energy on who should get the contract the build the turbine. School Committee members agreed to take up the turbine matter at its Oct. 16 meeting.
That group is expected to recommend an alternative site at the end of Legion Way, which would essentially make the school committee's rejection of the high school site unnecessary.
"We should, as a precaution, put it on your agenda at the next meeting," said School Committee Chairman Patrick A. "Buzz" Guida, who said as far …
... more [truncated due to possible copyright]The School Committee last night decided to put off a vote on whether to remove the high school from contention as a location for a proposed turbine.
The delay came because the Town Council is expected to get a recommendation on Monday from its Committee for Renewable Energy on who should get the contract the build the turbine. School Committee members agreed to take up the turbine matter at its Oct. 16 meeting.
That group is expected to recommend an alternative site at the end of Legion Way, which would essentially make the school committee's rejection of the high school site unnecessary.
"We should, as a precaution, put it on your agenda at the next meeting," said School Committee Chairman Patrick A. "Buzz" Guida, who said as far back as August that the high school was not the right place for the turbine, in part because it might create too much noise for neighbors.
The high school site, adjacent to the football field, was the original location because of state law that required all power generated by a wind turbine to be used at the site, and the high school is the largest consumer of electricity in the town.
But when that state law was amended, Legion Way became a viable site, and that made it easier for the committee to consider the objections of neighbors who didn't want the 326-foot-tall structure near their homes.
And because the device would be as close as 190 feet from a school building, the committee has been under pressure to withdraw its approval of the high school site.
The Legion Way site, at the end of the street at Brickyard Pond, has been the favored site for months because wind maps show a turbine would produce more power and the nearest home is at least 1,000 feet away.
Nonetheless, there has been plenty of opposition from neighbors in the area.
They have expressed concern that it would generate too much noise, kill birds, and pose a danger if chunks of ice or pieces of the turbine blades went flying.
The energy committee has concluded that most of those concerns are exaggerated; contended, for example, that even for people within 900 feet of the turbine, the chance of being hit by a flying blade fragment is lower than the chance of being struck by lightning; and the noise level 1,000 feet from the base of the turbine would be equivalent to the sound made by a bubbling brook.
The Town Council has said it would approve only a proposal that costs $2.4 million or less.