Turbines turn into headache for Vinalhaven

Noise complaints energize opponents of wind power and complicate Maine's renewable energy efforts.

VINALHAVEN - Cheryl Lindgren was excited when the three wind turbines down the road began turning in November, but within days her excitement turned to disbelief. The sound at her house, a half-mile or so away, wasn't what she had expected. As she sat reading in her quiet living room, she could detect a repetitive "whump, whump" coming from outside.

"I can feel this sound," she recalled thinking. "It's going right through me. I thought, 'Is this what's it's going to be like for the rest of my life?'"

Dedicated two months ago with great fanfare, the Fox Islands Wind Project is producing plenty of power, but also, a sense of shock among some neighbors. They say the noise, which varies with wind speed and direction, ranges from mildly annoying to so intrusive that it disturbs their sleep. And they say they lament losing the subtle silence they cherish living in the middle of Penobscot Bay -- the muffled crash of surf on the ledges and the whisper of falling snow.

The folks living around North Haven Road aren't anti-wind activists. Lindgren and her husband, Art, supported the project as members of the local electric co-op.

But now the Lindgrens are discovering what residents in other communities, including Mars Hill and Freedom, have learned: When large wind turbines are erected, some people living near them will find their lives disrupted.

That wasn't supposed to happen here. Co-op members on Vinalhaven and in neighboring North Haven endorsed the $15 million project as a way to hold down high electric rates and maintain a sustainable community. The developer, backed by the Rockland-based Island Institute, saw it as a model for other offshore towns.

In the wake of the complaints, the developer is taking extraordinary steps to try to lessen the impact. Several modest fixes are under way, and bigger ones are being considered, including some that could sacrifice energy output.

But the Vinalhaven experience also is being seen as a cautionary tale. Upon invitation, Art Lindgren and other neighbors have spoken at meetings in mainland towns where new wind farms are being proposed.

Meanwhile, wind power opponents are attempting to change the state noise standards by which projects are permitted. All this may complicate Maine's efforts to use its renewable resources to become more energy independent and create an industry around wind power.

IN NO-MAN'S LAND

The Vinalhaven project consists of three 1.5-megawatt turbines. They are a massive presence on a high point of land at the island's northwest corner, a 10-minute drive from the ferry terminal. Each unit stands 388-feet high, from ground to blade tip.

The ribbon-cutting in November drew more than 400 people and attracted national media attention. Schoolchildren passed out pinwheels. Visiting dignitaries applauded New England's largest coastal wind project.

The 15 or so property owners within a half-mile of the turbines watched with special interest.

To get state approval for a wind farm, developers must keep sound levels offsite below 45 decibels, less than the background noise in an average household. Fox Islands Wind purchased a home and two vacant properties that were adjacent to the towers. A fourth owner turned down a buyout offer, seeking more money.

But the Lindgrens and others suddenly found themselves in no-man's land: Their homes are technically outside the noise zone, but their ears say otherwise.

The Lindgrens built their home 10 years ago next to Seal Cove. They have goats and ducks and heat with wood. After much travel and a career in software development, the couple looked forward to a peaceful retirement. Instead, they now spend much of their time measuring sound levels, comparing notes with neighbors and learning the details of wind power.

Cheryl Lindgren values quiet. On a recent stormy evening, she recounted when she first came here and stood at the shoreline in the snow.

"All I could hear was the sound of snowflakes falling on my jacket," she said. "That's not going to happen again."

'UNSETTLING AND UNPLEASANT'

On this evening, the Lindgrens were having cake and coffee with three other neighbors who are troubled by turbine noise. They've already developed a vocabulary to describe the shifting sounds.

One sound is like sneakers going around in a dryer. Another mimics an industrial motor. There's a ripping and pulsing of blades cutting through the air, and the rotational "whump, whump, whump" sound.

Another common sound, which was audible on this evening from the Lindgrens' front porch, resembles a jet plane that's preparing to land, but never does. That sound was produced by two turbines spinning in a moderate northeast blow that followed the snowstorm. The third turbine was offline for repairs.

"That's fairly standard," Cheryl Lindgren said. "And that's just with two turbines. Factor in the third and it's unsettling and unpleasant."

For Ethan Hall, the sound is more than unpleasant.

Hall is a young carpenter who's building a small homestead on a height of land past the Lindgrens, roughly 3,000 feet from the nearest turbine. The noise was so annoying on some nights, Hall said, that he couldn't sleep in the passive-solar, straw-bale structure. Now he's house-sitting in town.

"I find it maddening," he said. "It's a rhythmic, pulsing sound that's impossible to ignore."

Art Farnham is trying to ignore the noise, although he can clearly hear it inside his mobile home. A lobsterman who lives 1,300 feet from a turbine, Farnham turned down an offer to buy his 6-acre property. He continues working on a new home and shop that will have a turbine almost in its backyard.

"I think they should shut them down," he said. "We were here before they were."

Between Hall and the Lindgrens is the home of David and Sally Wylie. They built in the once-quiet cove, and like their neighbors, did much of the work themselves.

"This has been our dream, our life," Sally Wylie said from their winter home in Rockland.

Set into the snow on the Wylies' lawn is a tripod and meter that Fox Islands Wind is using to measure sound levels. But that's little comfort to Sally Wylie, who believes the computer modeling used to approve the project is wrong. The only solution now, she said, is to turn down the turbines to a point that they are quieter, but still produce an acceptable amount of power.

"It really boils down to what the community is going to accept," she said.

REDUCING SOUND CUTS POWER

The task of trying to find a remedy for the noise complaints has fallen to George Baker, chief executive officer of Fox Islands Wind LLC.

Baker has spent the past two months taking sound measurements, studying computer models and talking to neighbors and the turbine manufacturer, General Electric. He slept one windy night at a vacant house 1,110 feet from two turbines, to experience the sound. He said he could hear the turbines but they weren't particularly loud and didn't prevent him from sleeping.

Baker recently e-mailed neighbors to outline his initial plans. Workers will make small modifications to the equipment. They'll change the turbines' gearbox ratio, for instance, and close air vents in the nacelles, the housing that covers components. Baker also is looking at adding sound dampening insulation to the nacelles.

Another idea is to turn down the turbines, essentially slowing the blades' rotational speed. Sound measurement in decibels is a logarithmic equation. That means cutting the output from 45 decibels - the state standard - to 42 decibels would cut sound volume in half.

The problem, Baker said, is slowing all three turbine blades that much would reduce power output by 20 percent. That would translate into electric rates that are 20 percent higher.

Another approach is to turn down the turbines only when the sound is most annoying. Computers can do this, Baker says, but it's a complicated calculation. He has begun collection sound and wind speed data and trying to correlate it to what neighbors observe.

"I am hopeful we can figure out how to turn these things down when the sound is most troubling," he said.

That's also the hope of the Island Institute in Rockland, a development group that focuses on Maine's 15 year-round island communities. It sees renewable energy as critical to maintaining sustainable, offshore communities in the 21st century. With Baker serving as the group's vice president for community wind, the institute is working with residents on Monhegan, as well as Swans Island and neighboring Frenchboro, Long Island, on turbine plans.

These islands have fewer residents, so they don't need as much power, according to Philip Conkling, the group's president. That means smaller systems.

"I don't think there's going to be another three-turbine wind farm on the coast of Maine," Conkling said.

He said it will take careful study to find a solution on Vinalhaven. Hundreds of people stood near the spinning turbines at the ribbon-cutting, he noted, and no one complained.

"But when you live with them day in and day out, it's a different experience," he said.

BILL WOULD CHANGE STANDARDS

A proposed bill in the Legislature would amend current noise standards to include low-frequency sound. These sounds are emitted by wind turbines and blades, but aren't addressed by the rules, activists say.

"Maine's noise regulations do not require the measurement of this low-frequency sound," Steve Thurston, co-chair of the Citizen's Task Force on Wind Power, said in an e-mail. "By using the dBA scale only, it appears that turbine noise diminishes to acceptable levels before it reaches homes nearby."

But complaints from people living near projects in Mars Hill and Freedom show otherwise, the group says. Now the same pattern is emerging on Vinalhaven.

House Speaker Hannah Pingree, who grew up on North Haven, is following the concerns closely. She's a big supporter of renewable energy, but has come to recognize that the Vinalhaven project is causing real problems.

"I am in a very active learning mode on this subject," she said.

Pingree doubts the noise bill will get a hearing in this short legislative session. But the state should examine the issue, she said, perhaps through a special task force.

In the meantime, some towns in Maine are enacting ordinances requiring a mile between turbines and homes. After Art Lindgren and Ethan Hall related their experiences in Buckfield earlier this month, residents overwhelmingly passed a six-month moratorium, aimed at a three-turbine proposal on Streaked Mountain.

This trend worries Baker at Fox Islands Wind. A mile setback makes community wind energy unfeasible, he said.

"Do we want to set rules that makes it impossible to do something that's really good for a community because 10 percent of the people are bothered by it?" Baker asked.