Wednesday, March 03, 2010

Tilting at Windmills - A Finger Lakes family and their quite village brace for the big wind

Earthship vs. Windmill The Yeagers found peace and quiet … and then came the roaring wind.

Jim and Theresa Yeager were looking for a lovely, quiet place in the country, a peaceful slice of the American dream. Their baby boy Sebastian was sick—sick, they feared, because he was growing up in the urban wasteland of Deptford, New Jersey, a crowded suburb of Philadelphia. He couldn’t sleep, he kept throwing up, his development was lagging.

A growing toddler, Sebastian was struggling “like he was a newborn,” Theresa says. When a medical test revealed high lead in Sebastian’s blood stream, they decided right then to get out of the city and follow their dream to live more naturally.

The pastoral hills of the southern Finger Lakes looked like just the place. In October 2005 the Yeagers and Theresa’s father, Roy Messner, bought 113 acres of rolling land in Prattsburgh (pop. 2,000), a rural village sixty miles south of Rochester, New York. Their dream was an Earthship, a natural and environmentally sustainable home wedged into the hillside as snugly as a Hobbit hole in The Lord of the Rings.

The house, made from recycled materials, would be wrapped into a hillside or bermed with landscape to support heating and cooling, with energy coming from the sun or wind. Rainwater would be for drinking. Wastewater would be recycled in botanical planters. They’d grow food both inside and outside the house.

The first step was building a recycled tire-and-earth wrap for the house. They did it by hand and with joy. “We love our mountain,” Theresa says. “We like living in no man’s land.” They loved the pastoral rolling hills and woods, gentle streams, friendly neighbors, the brisk breeze that promised natural wind power. When Sebastian was diagnosed with autism and ypersensitivity to sound—any sound—they were especially thankful for their decision to enfold their house in the embrace of the earth.

“Sebastian can’t handle the sound of a vacuum cleaner,” says Jim Yeager. “He can’t take noises, can’t take even the wind in his ears.” Then the big wind came. Country wind as loud as a New Jersey expressway began to roar.

The sleepy villages of southern New York and northern Pennsylvania are being shaken by sudden change because of the exploding global demand for affordable energy. Big energy companies from Texas to Boston are puncturing the sky with windmills as tall as the Statue of Liberty to harvest the wind, or plunging pipes into the Earth, miles deep and across, to suck natural gas from the shale. The region is sitting on a Saudi Arabia of gas and oil, folks say. And the wind blowing across the lovely hills is an energy prize, whispering gold, some of the most powerful wind in the East.

The Yeagers had heard there was “wind interest” in Prattsburgh, and being eager to live naturally and “go green,” they thought it sounded like a good idea. They didn’t know that three months before they bought their dream land, local controversy over a proposal to erect ninety wind turbines, each roughly 400 feet tall, in tiny Prattsburgh had landed the village in the New York Times.

Local resident Tom Cadigan, 59, who moved to the village with his wife, Kay, to enjoy the peaceful view from their home, told the Times, “My gosh, it looks like there’s going to be five around us. The whole neighborhood could be driven right out.”

The Yeagers had landed right in the middle of a controversy afflicting many towns around the country as wind farms proliferate. In Prattsburgh and elsewhere the people who would benefit financially from wind farms, including local governments and private leaseholders, often find themselves facing off against neighbors who worry about visual and noise pollution and declining home values. In Prattsburgh, the town and school district point to hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue from the wind farm. The issues surrounding wind turbines have pitted neighbor against neighbor and even divided some families. Prowind and anti-wind politicians have fought for votes, shaping town elections.

Ironically, the Yeagers were planning to cash in on the wind themselves with a residential wind energy system for home electricity. As the Earthship construction was underway,

Theresa’s father built a modest house nearby for himself. Shortly after he moved in, EcoGen and First Wind Inc. began creating gusts of controversy in small towns like Prattsburgh, Cohocton, and Italy—communities of 2,500 residents or less and encompassing approximately fifty square miles. Maps showing the proposed locations for the 400-foot wind turbines depict the southern FingerLakes region as a pincushion for some 150 industrial windmills.

Although Cohocton residents gave the goahead to wind energy companies, other towns like Prattsburgh and Italy fought to keep their rural settings quiet and unobstructed.

In 2007 the Cohocton project was underway with the building of thirty-four Clipper C-96 2.5 Megawatt turbines.

The Yeagers’ fears about the location of their home—fit into a south-facing hillside—in close proximity to proposed wind turbine sites made the on-again-off-again progress of their Earthship even more distressing.

“When we first saw on the maps that there would be a turbine up behind our dad’s house we weren’t thrilled, but we thought we could deal. It would be 2,000 feet away from us,” says Theresa. When they discovered that another turbine was slated to be right across the road, less than 800 feet away, they were stunned.

“I asked how I was able to get a building permit if the turbine was going to be so close,” says Jim. “The town supervisor told me he hadn’t known anything about that location when I applied for my building permits.”

Despite his difficulties, at age five son Sebastian is flourishing like never before, and the Yeagers credit the peaceful country lifestyle. Sebastian sleeps now, he hardly throws up anymore, and he’s learning to communicate with some sign language and gestures.

The droning noises that some neighbors hear from wind turbines haven’t reached their home site yet. But although an earth-bermed house will help with some of the noise issues, Theresa says that the school bus stop will be in “hard hat” zone according to the wind industry’s specifications. Not to mention, their front yard will be too, limiting the play area for all of the children.

“Heck,” cuts in Messner, “if the (proposed) turbine fell over like the one in Fenner, New York, did a couple weeks ago, it would land right on my house.”

The Yeagers fret over complaints from other local residents. Cohocton turbine leaseholder and farmer Hal Graham and his wife, Judy, say they endure sleepless nights and aggravating noise from the turbines.

“They stole our peace with a smile on their faces,” says Judy. Hal has been speaking out about the unexpected noise problems from the newly erected turbines for a year now.

The sound has been described as that of a jet engine taking off, an expressway, or the constant drone of a tractor. The Grahams say that leaseholders in Cohocton were told the sound of the turbines was likened to that of a refrigerator running, but that’s not what they hear.

Hal Graham has gone as far as Watertown, New York, seventy miles north of Syracuse, to speak to other communities about the impact of wind turbines. He has officially apologized to his neighbors for the mistake he made in signing a contract with First Wind, a wind energy company located in Boston, Massachusetts. At several of the board meetings in Prattsburgh, Cohocton neighbors have voiced concerns about the noise issues. At one point they were told something was going to be done to solve the issue—a spokesman from First Wind suggested that mufflers would be put on the engines.

But Judy Graham says that while two of the nearest turbines have had smaller wings put on to help with the sound issues, “its actually louder. The noise is just terrible.”

Judy and Hal are sixth-generation farmers living in the old farmhouse they restored themselves. “We put a deck out on the back years ago and used to love going out at night and entertaining under the stars or just enjoying the peace and quiet,” says Judy.

“We can’t do that anymore.” She also says that she’s been suffering from headaches, their golden retriever barks constantly now, and they often lose their television signal when the turbines turn to face the wind.

And the noise of the wind turbines isn’t the only health concern the Yeagers have. Cases of “flicker-effect”—a flickering of sunlight off of the blades, which is caused by the angle of the sunlight early and late in the day—is said to contribute to migraines.

Messner has suffered from migraines in the past but has, thankfully, been able to go off his daily medication since coming to these hills in Prattsburgh, but he’s worried that his migraines will return. “Early morning flicker at the bus stop could also affect Sebastian’s entire day,” adds Jim.

Last November Dr. Nina Pierpont MD PhD published her research on the effects of industrial turbines on human health. The title of the book is Wind Turbine Syndrome: A Report on a Natural Experiment (Santa Fe, NM: K-Selected Books, 2009). “Wind Turbine Syndrome” is a term she coined to describe the myriad detrimental health effects she discovered in many of her research subjects living in close proximity (1,000 to 2,000 feet) to a turbine. Symptoms include earaches, ear pressure and ringing in the ears, nausea, dizziness, inability to concentrate, headaches, migraines, vision disturbances, inability to sleep, and more.

The Yeagers are emboldened by the fact that the small town of Italy successfully fought against wind farms, but it took them years. The Italy town board has offered Prattsburgh and the citizen group, Advocates for Prattsburgh, their recently written moratorium agreement and wind power industry regulations while Prattsburgh is still in debate.

Although First Wind just recently backed out of its Prattsburg project, another company, EcoGen, is still fighting for its right to build in the village. EcoGen filed suit against the village of Prattsburgh for breach of contract just months after they proposed imminent domain for electric line rights-of-way. EcoGen’s lawsuit against the town for holding up progress on their development has since been rescinded, but the struggle for both sides continues. The energy company’s proposed number of turbines has also dropped from around fifty to sixteen.

Theresa Yeager expressed her concerns for her autistic son and her family to EcoGen representatives after she was told by a sound engineer for the town of Prattsburgh that she should move the house.

The energy company was not deaf to her needs, she says. Tom Hagner of EcoGen heard the Yeager’s concerns, and, according to Theresa, began “looking into moving back some of the proposed turbines.” But Theresa was told by her son’s occupational therapists at school that the relocation of the turbines would still be too close for Sebastian.

They’ve already moved the Earthship once—by hand—and can’t do it again. “We can’t move the Earthship back any farther. There’s a pond too close, and Sebastian has no fear or understanding of the danger of falling in.”

“In this environment—without the noise, the lights, and constant distractions—Sebastian is developing and,” Theresa adds emphatically, “he’s sleeping!” She smiles a moment and then says, “we’re doing the same things for Sebastian here as we were doing in New Jersey, so if it had nothing to do with the environment, then why is he having such major progress now?”

“The setbacks [the distance the turbine must be from residential areas] of these structures aren’t enough.” worries Theresa. “In other countries, which have been putting up turbines for more years than we have, they’re finding that their setbacks aren’t far enough.” Dr. Pierpont recommends setbacks of at least 1.5 miles from human habitation.

For now, the Yeagers are hoping that town officials will vote for a moratorium on building and that EcoGen will fix the location of many of their proposed turbines in Prattsburgh.

At a public hearing on February 15, there was strong support for a moratorium on EcoGen’s turbines at the town meeting, but the final vote has been stayed until next month, at the earliest. Jim says, “We’ll keep building our house this summer and hope they realize that building turbines that close to a home is ridiculous.”

Prattsburgh town councilwoman, Anneka Raiden-Snaith, says she would tell other communities considering wind turbines on their hilltops that “there’s a lot to consider, but, most importantly, because noise and vibration issues haven’t been fully resolved,” she says “regulations must reflect adequate setbacks from residences and property lines.”

“We’re hoping that the town will set up good laws to keep people safe.” adds Theresa. “It’s just that the laws haven’t caught up to the technology yet.”

Those in support of the wind turbines hang signs that say, “We support clean, renewable, energy.” Opponents argue—who doesn’t? But for them, while energy consumption and solutions are environmental, they are a people issue first and foremost. Meanwhile, Theresa and Jim Yeager keep building their dream house, the Earthship, hoping the windmills won’t come too close, or be too loud, but mostly waiting out forces beyond their control—waiting to see which way the wind blows.

Angela Cannon-Crothers is a freelance writer and outdoor educator living in the Finger Lakes region of New York

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