Could wind farms spark special tours?

MUSKEGON -- An eyesore or thing of beauty? A detriment to tourism or a magnet for it?

That is the core of the debate raging between proponents and opponents of wind farms off the shores of Lake Michigan.

Muskegon's Jack Kennedy has seen a waterfront wind farm in action.

Kennedy is a Muskegon County road commissioner, project manager for Muskegon Construction Co. and a member of the Muskegon County Sustainability Coalition.

While visiting Arklow, Ireland, a few years ago in County Wicklow -- a community similar to Grand Haven -- Kennedy said he had to see the Arklow Bank Wind Park, located off an historic port and fishing community 50 miles south of Dublin on the Irish Sea across St. George's Channel from Great Britain.

The seven GE 3.6 megawatt offshore wind turbines might speak to Muskegon's future, Kennedy thought on his Irish trip two years before Scandia Wind Offshore arrived in West Michigan with an aggressive development plan of offshore wind farms and an onshore wind turbine manufacturing facility.

Today, Kennedy recalls how the turbines six miles off the Irish coastline had become somewhat of a tourist attraction. A sign on the Arklow Beach gave the story of the 25 megawatt offshore wind park developed by Airtricity, an Irish alternative energy company developing similar offshore wind turbine parks in Northern Ireland and Scotland.

"None of the people we talked to in town or down at the beach had any problems with them," Kennedy said of the turbines barely visible that day in the haze on the horizon of the Irish Sea. "The fishermen said they loved them. They said they were catching more fish around them."

How tourism would be affected in communities such as Grand Haven, Muskegon and Pentwater is one of the unknown points of concern as West Michigan shoreline communities ponder being host communities for the massive turbine towers in Lake Michigan.

Would the offshore wind farms be a scourge for the important lakeshore tourism industry based on the unfettered, unspoiled views of the Big Lake? Or would travelers -- especially those of younger generations -- go out of their way to visit a community that had become the offshore wind center of the Great Lakes?

The answer generally depends on your gut-level reaction to the idea of wind turbines on Lake Michigan. Opponents are sure the damage caused to the tourism industry would outweigh any benefits from the production of clean energy or of new jobs. Tourists would shun beaches where the turbines could be seen from shore, they argue.

Proponents are just as sure that the first Lake Michigan wind farms would become tourist destinations.

Jim MacInnes, president of Crystal Mountain Resort and Spa, has been thinking about wind turbines on Lake Michigan for more than a year as a member of Gov. Jennifer Granholm's Great Lakes Wind Council, charged with suggesting the state's policies on offshore wind turbines.

"I think it will be favorable," MacInnes said in a panel discussion at last week's Michigan Wind Energy Conference in Detroit concerning the effects of offshore wind on tourism. "Being in the tourism industry, I don't see any negatives. I see it as a net positive. I see the interest being such that companies would develop to provide boat tours so people could go out and see them."

That is exactly what is happening in Belgium. A North Sea charter boat company is planning speedboat tours this summer of the Thornton Bank Wind Farm that has six offshore wind turbines but will have 60 in the next two years.

Since Scandia created a major public stir in recent months with its suggestion of wind farms off the shores of Grand Haven and Pentwater and major port support in Muskegon, the West Michigan tourism industry has been fairly quiet.

"Our area (tourism) businesses are aware of some of the issues that loom out there, but there just has not been enough talk of the plans that affect us at this time," said Amy VanLoon, executive director of the White Lake Area Chamber of Commerce. "My overall perception of the offshore wind turbines is a positive one, but we will wait and see what develops."

There has been little talk of the offshore wind turbine issue in the Muskegon County tourism industry, said Jill Emery, the Muskegon County tourism manager.

"It is going to be an issue we are going to hear about in May at the state tourism conference," Emery said. "It is an issue we need to address as an industry."

After visiting the Irish coast and being part of a community trip to the land-based wind farm southeast of Cadillac near the farming community of McBain, Kennedy said he doesn't understand the emotional opposition to the Scandia request for community support of the company's further environmental and economic investigation of Lake Michigan wind farms.

The aesthetic issues of being able to see the 50-100 turbines over 50 square miles off the Grand Haven and Pentwater shores has produced a well-organized and financed opposition -- Lake Michigan POWER Coalition.

"I don't see what all of the brouhaha is about," Kennedy said of the opposition. "The benefits far outweigh the perception that these will wreck our views of the lake."