Editor’s note: This commentary is by Tad Montgomery, who is a member of the Brattleboro Energy Committee, along with George Harvey and Tom Finnell.
On May 1, George Harvey, Tom Finnell and I drove over the foggy Green Mountains to Bennington to attend a Public Service Board hearing on proposed new regulations for wind power in Vermont. These rules would have a standard of 39 decibels (dB) at night and 42 dB during the day, combined with a minimum setback distance of 10 times a turbine’s height. If finalized, Vermont would have the most stringent wind power sound regulations in the country and from what I can tell would effectively ban new large wind turbines.
There were between 40 and 50 people gathered at the Bennington fire station when we arrived and I was gratified to hear speaker after speaker give testimony in support of wind power and in opposition to the tighter sound restrictions.
Tom was the first of the Brattleboro contingent to speak. He had brought his own decibel meter just for tricks and grins. Holding it high for all to see he said, “I want to start by noting that this sound measuring device starts at 40 dB, below that it simply reads ‘Lo.’ I have been sitting in the back of the room watching the levels bounce around as people talk, and when nobody is speaking the level reads 40 dB. I guess that is the ventilation system that it is picking up in the background.” This comment brought chuckles and light applause. Turning to the board he said, “The standards that you are proposing are unreasonably low.”
George spoke next. The two of them have a delightful dog-and-pony style, as anyone who has watched Energy Week on Brattleboro Community Television can attest. “In 2015 the entire wind power industry combined would not make it onto the list of the world’s biggest companies with revenues over $100 billion per year. This list included Koch Industries and 21 oil and gas companies in 2015. The combined revenue of these 22 companies was six times bigger than the U.S. federal budget. Today Koch Industries has fallen off that list, and only seven oil and gas companies remain on it. Do you think that they are scared of renewable energy? Do you doubt that they are doing everything in their power to fight wind energy?” The applause got louder.
By taking large wind projects off the table, as this proposed rule will do, the PSB is ending that conversation before it can even begin.
“I would like to talk for a minute about terrorism,” he went on. “The Paris terrorist attack last year lasted 217 minutes and resulted in 137 deaths. It was a horrendous event that shocked the world. In that same 217 minutes roughly 10 times as many people died as a result of outdoor air pollution. People continue to die from outdoor air pollution at that same rate, minute after minute, day after day, year after year. Why is the world not horrified? Why are we not doing everything in our power to move away from fossil fuels?”
“Pika Research is a wind company based in Maine, and has a wind turbine that was tested by the EPA for sound levels,” he said next. “The test failed, however, because the sound of the turbine was drowned out by the sound of the wind blowing through tall grass in a neighboring field. It is pretty clear that something as benign as the wind blowing through that field of grass would fail the PSB’s proposed new sound standard.”
Not everyone was so inclined at the hearing. After about 15 people spoke in favor of wind power, two spoke in opposition. One man was a selectboard member in Grafton during the fierce debate on wind power there last year. He gave testimony that made it clear that he has done a lot of research on the issue, and visited most if not all of the wind farms in Vermont. He said that at one of them he could feel vibrations on the wall of a residence coming from a nearby wind turbine. At another he said that the “sound” where he stood was so intense that he felt ill effects in his heart and chest and had to quickly leave.
These were serious allegations, and it was disconcerting to hear them. Afterwards I did some of my own research on the subject and turned up a map depicting noise complaints from homes near wind farms in Vermont. At the Georgia Mountain wind project, for example, the Department of Public Service has registered complaints from only four homes out of 164 within 1.5 miles of the turbines. I also called a friend in Grafton to ask about this former selectman’s stance on wind power and was told that the man is vehemently opposed to wind. I could not help but wonder if this had some bearing on his experiences when he visited the wind power sites.
In 2013, a number of us sponsored a series of talks by two leaders of the remarkably successful European transition to renewable energy. One point that they made over and over again was that opposition to renewable energy evaporates when communities are given the opportunity to invest in, and own, a share of big energy projects. To this end I would urge the Public Service Board, the Department of Public Service, the Legislature and our governor to create mechanisms whereby ownership of large wind and solar energy projects is easy for Vermonters and Vermont businesses near to the proposed facilities.
By taking large wind projects off the table, as this proposed rule will do, the PSB is ending that conversation before it can even begin. Setting the lowest wind power sound limit in the nation and an arbitrary setback distance is going to make it nearly impossible to site a wind project in Vermont. These rules are now under consideration by the Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules, and I for one urge the Committee to object to this arbitrary obstacle to a critical clean energy technology.
