WIND FARM PLAN STIRS DEBATE IN BROWN CO.; Developer seeks to build largest operation in state.

By Scott Williams

Green Bay Press-Gazette

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Business has been slow, so dairy farmer Bernie Kozlovsky could use a little extra cash as much as the next guy.

But a developer’s offer of $6,000 annually for access to his property has Kozlovsky — and many of his neighbors — conflicted about whether to welcome a wind farm into southern Brown County.

The proposal by Chicago-based Invenergy LLC would be Brown County’s first major commercial wind farm and would be larger than any currently operating in the state.

Proponents say wind energy protects the environment and provides economic growth, while opponents fear the intrusion of spinning turbines that stand 400 feet tall.

As presented to state regulators, Invenergy’s plan calls for 100 turbines south of Green Bay in the towns of Glenmore, Wrightstown, Morrison and Holland.

Kozlovsky, who farms 80 acres in Glenmore, has made up his mind.

“I said, ‘Thanks, but no thanks,’” he said. “Sure the money’s tempting. But then you’ve got to step back.”

In addition to paying farmers and other landowners $6,000 a year or more to allow turbines on their property, Invenergy is offering the county and local communities a combined $600,000 annually in incentives.

Invenergy spokesman Kevin Parzyck said other Wisconsin locations were considered, but the topography of southern Brown County made it an ideal location.

“There’s good wind that can produce good energy,” he said.

The Chicago developer, which already has 18 wind farms throughout the country, outlined its plans in an application filed last week with the state Public Service Commission.

According to the application, 54 turbines would be erected in Morrison, while 22 would be in Holland, 20 in Wrightstown and four in Glenmore. Known as the Ledge Wind Energy Project, the farm would begin operation in 2011 and would generate enough electricity to power about 40,000 homes.

Wisconsin currently is home to nine commercial wind farms, the largest of which is owned by Milwaukee-based We Energies and includes 88 turbines in Fond du Lac County. Twenty more wind projects are under development statewide, including one in Glenmore that would involve eight turbines.

Another developer in 1998 erected two turbines elsewhere in Glenmore, in what was Brown County’s first commercial wind project.

Invenergy’s proposal for the county’s first large-scale operation is stirring strong reactions.

William Hafs, the county’s director of land and water conservation, said county officials support wind energy development because it is environmentally friendly.

Hafs noted that Gov. Jim Doyle has set a goal of utilizing renewable resources to generate 25 percent of the state’s energy needs by 2025.

“This is the future,” Hafs said. “It’s a clean energy, and it’s the way to go.”

The Public Service Commission will hold public hearings before deciding whether to allow the Invenergy development — a process that could take several months. County and town officials also will have an opportunity to review applications for zoning, building permits and other elements of the development.

Local officials in the development site say they have heard mixed feelings from residents.

Kevin Collins, a Morrison trustee, said some residents favor the project because of the economic boost, but others are opposed to the idea of altering the area’s rural aesthetics.

“I don’t think it’s for everybody,” Collins said.

Glenmore Chairman Don Kittell, on the other hand, called the development a boon to the region both financially and in terms of energy resources.

“We’re going to make some money,” Kittell said, “and we’re not going to run out of electricity."

 Hearings on wind farm packed; hundreds turn out to hear merits debated

By Lyn Jerde

Daily Register

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FRIESLAND - Walter Wiersma considered introducing a photo of his children - 5-year-old Spencer and 3-year-old Rianna - into the written record of Wednesday's Public Service Commission of Wisconsin hearing to illustrate his opposition to electricity-generating wind turbines in northeast Columbia County.

Wiersma, of Friesland, was one of many people at the standing-room-only hearings who said worries about the health effects, safety and noise from wind turbines, in a 17,300-acre area in the towns of Scott and Randolph, should lead the commission to reject the We Energies proposal for Glacier Hills Wind Park.

"I'm for green energy," he said, "but I don't want it to hurt my family and friends."

The two hearing sessions, one at 3 p.m. and one at 7 p.m., were moved from the Randolph Town Hall to the Friesland Village Hall next door, in an effort to accommodate the crowds that showed up at both sessions.

All 50 chairs in the village board's meeting room were filled, and attendees spilled into the back of the room, and even into the hall outside.

At the first session, which lasted about an hour and 15 minutes, testimony was fairly divided among proponents and opponents of the wind project, which is expected to generate 207 megawatts of energy (enough to power about 45,000 homes) from 90 turbines, built on about 240 parcels of leased farmland.

Cliff Krentz of the town of Randolph said economics - namely, jobs for builders such as himself - is the strongest argument in favor of the project.

"Glacier Hills Wind Park can do a lot of good for a lot of people in this area," he said.

Several other witnesses, representing construction companies and unions representing workers in the construction business, offered similar testimony.

But at the second session, which lasted about two hours, several of those who testified said they lived near Blue Sky Green Fields, an 88-turbine We Energies wind farm that began operating last year in Fond du Lac County, in the towns of Marshfield and Calumet.

James Mueller of the town of Marshfield said the noise from the turbines is worst in winter, when there are no crops in the field to muffle it.

"It roars above my house like a jet," he said.

James Vollmer, who also lives near Blue Sky Green Fields, said he had to stop raising birds because the noise from the turbines stressed them so much, they stopped laying eggs, they molted in the winter and some of them died.

"Just like anyone else," he said, "if birds can't sleep, they get health problems."

Several other witnesses who live near Blue Sky Green Fields testified about problems with TV and radio reception, a strobe effect from the turbine blades called shadow flicker, and people who are susceptible to motion sickness experiencing queasiness from the turning turbines.

But Art Ondrejkas. who lives in the town of Calumet in Fond du Lac County, said he works for a company that is contracted to service the turbines there - and he has no problems living near them.

"I have a family there," he said, "and if I thought that something would happen to my family because of the wind turbines, I'd be out of there in a minute."

Several residents of the towns of Scott and Randolph said they've tried to sell their homes since hearing of plans for the wind farm, but have had few or no offers because of the possibility of the turbines being built.

Nancy Bump of the town of Scott said she has not leased any of her land for the turbines, but four of them are planned for near her home - the nearest one a little less than 1,200 feet away.

"We will be subjected to sleepless nights and shadow flicker from all four points of the compass," she said.

Carl Vander Galien, Friesland village president, read into the record a village resolution in opposition to the project. If the turbines are built, the resolution asks that We Energies pay the village yearly to compensate for the drop in property values the village is already experiencing just from the anticipation of the project.

"Personally," he said, "I don't see why this project is being built here, because of the low amount of wind."

Several attendees also submitted only written testimony, which was not read aloud to the group.

Administrative Law Judge Michael Newmark, who presided at the hearings, said all testimony, oral and written, is taken under oath. All testimony, except any that might be removed later due to objections from attorneys, will be compiled for the three-member Public Service Commission's consideration when it decides, probably sometime in January, whether to approve, deny or approve with modifications the Glacier Hills Wind Park project.

If the commission approves the project, construction will likely start next summer, and the turbines should be operational sometime in 2011.

ljerde@capitalnewspapers.com

745-3587

Lyn Jerde/Daily Register
James Ebert of Friesland, left, expresses adamant opposition to the proposed Glacier Hills Wind Park Wednesday, as Administrative Law Judge Michaal Newmark listens, during a Public Service Commission of Wisconsin hearing at the Friesland Village Hall. Sworn testimony from the hearing will be given to the three-member Public Service Commission, which will decide, probably in January, whether to approve, modify or deny approval to the proposed We Energies wind energy complex in northeast Columbia County.

Lyn Jerde/Daily Register
Every chair was filled, and people stood in the back of the room and even in the hallway, for a Public Service Commission of Wisconsin public hearing on a proposed wind energy complex in the towns of Scott and Randolph. The hearing, originally scheduled for the Randolph Town Hall, was moved to the Friesland Village Hall next door to allow more seating space. At least 100 people attending each of the two hearing sessions Wednesday.

To follow the stimulus money you'll need a passport

A new report finds that only two out of ten dollars in stimulus money granted for wind energy stays in the US. The other 80% heads straight overseas.

CLICK HERE to read the whole story.

Final wind farm hearing Wednesday

By Lyn Jerde, Daily Register 

[CLICK HERE to read at source]

October 28, 2009

Residents will have one last chance to have their say before the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin decides the fate of a proposed wind energy farm in northeast Columbia County.

Here are some questions and answers about Wednesday's public hearing on the Glacier Hills Wind Park, proposed by We Energies.

Q. Where and when will the hearing be held?

It will be held Wednesday at the Randolph Town Hall, which is located in the village of Friesland at 109 S. Madison St. (Columbia County Highway EF, just off Highway 33).

Public Service Commission Spokeswoman Teresa Weidemann-Smith said there will be two hearings - one beginning at 3 p.m. and the other at 7 p.m. Either of the hearings could be extended or continued to another day if there are more people wishing to testify than time allows, she said.

Q. Who will preside over the hearings?

Administrative Law Judge Michael Newmark will preside.

Q. Are the hearings like a courtroom proceeding?

In many ways, yes. People who testify will take an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Objections can be raised that could lead to testimony not being admitted to the record, with Newmark ruling on whether the objections would be sustained or overruled.

Q. Who can testify?

Anybody with an opinion for or against the proposed wind farm - consisting of 90 wind turbines, to be located on leased land in an area covering 17,300 acres in the towns of Scott and Randolph - can testify at the hearing.

Q. How will the testimony be used?

The testimony will be taken down verbatim by a court reporter and will be compiled for consideration by the members of the Public Service Commission: Chairman Eric Callisto and Commissioners Mark Meyer and Lauren Azar. The commission is expected to decide in January whether it will approve, reject or modify the We Energies application to construct the wind farm.

Q. Why does We Energies want to build a wind farm in Columbia County?

Utility companies operating in Wisconsin are being required by law to produce more and more of their energy from renewable sources such as wind and sun.

Walter "Doc" Musekamp, local affairs director for We Energies, said the proposed Columbia County location offers several advantages. It's located near an existing electric transmission system, and it's in an area that has pockets of reliable wind.

Altogether, the wind farm is expected to generate up to 207 megawatts of energy, enough to power at least 25,000 homes.

Q. Will Columbia County residents get any of the energy that the wind farm is expected to generate?

 Yes and no. We Energies has electric customers in Wisconsin and Michigan but does not offer electric service anywhere in Columbia County. (A small portion of the county gets natural gas service from We Energies.) However, once power gets added to an existing grid, it's impossible to determine exactly where it originated - so, theoretically, some of the energy generated in Columbia County could wind up being used by Columbia County customers of utilities other than We Energies.

Q. Wasn't the public hearing on this project supposed to have been held last summer?

Yes. It was originally scheduled for July 13. But the Public Service Commission requested the delay to allow for the compilation of an environmental impact statement after residents of the towns of Scott and Randolph raised questions not addressed in an environmental assessment that the PSC released - questions about such things as the noise made by the turbines, their effects on flying wildlife such as birds and bats, effects on land use and long-term health effects for people who live near large wind turbines. These questions were addressed in the environmental impact statement, which came out early this month. The environmental impact statement, and other documents relating to the project, can be viewed on the Public Service Commission's Web site by going to www.psc.wi.gov and entering case number 6630-CE-302.

Q, If the commission approves the project, when would the wind farm be up and running?

A. No sooner than spring or summer 2011.

Q. If I can't make it to the hearing, may I express my opinion about the project to the PSC in written form?

A. The deadline for doing so was Wednesday. Any further expressions of opinion would have to be in the form of testimony at the public hearing.

HOME IN A WISCONSIN WIND FARM: What the setbacks from homes look like in the Invenergy Forward Energy Wind Farm near the Town of Byron, Fond du Lac County

FROM THE DOCKET:  If you'd like to review the testimony and public comments for the proposed Glacier Hills project CLICK HERE and enter docket number 6630-CE-302.

To see maps and find out more about this project, CLICK HERE.

The following is included as part of the documents submitted regarding the Glacier Hills project. It was written by James Vollmer, who is a resident of the Blue Sky/Green Field project which is owned by WE Energies. WE Energies will also own the Glacier Hills farm.

Blue Sky/ Green Field wind farm, Towns of Malone and Marshfield, Fond du Lac County. Photo by Gerry MeyerHome in a wind farm with a 1000 foot setback: Fond du Lac County Wisconsin

  "Since the wind turbines have been turning I have had to deal with several different problems and have not had any of my complaints resolved.

I have had problems with TV reception, radio reception, cell phone phone reception, shadow flicker, poultry dying, noise keeping me awake at night and have been forced into selling my property to get away from these problems.

I'm not even able to get anyone to even make an offer on the house since it has been for sale.

When [WE Energies] started the project  we were told that any TV problems would be taken care of.

Since then they have made me jump through all kinds of hoops in order to get the dish that was in stalled on the house. The dish still does not work properly. When watching the TV the screen still locks up and the voices  are off from the lip movement and the only thing they tell me is that I have to wait for the technology to get better.

It is coming up on two years and the problems are still not fixed.

Now they are going around and having people sign a contract that will only give them the local channels which consist of four stations. And should we be happy with this?

I will take time and send in more info on this subject as I have time.

(Written by James Vollmer to the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin)

Mr. Vollmer was one of the residents interviewed for a book proposal about life in a Wisconsin Wind farm. The interview took place in late June of this year.

This is an early draft of the chapter about his experiences:

      James Vollmer’s home is located inside one of Wisconsin’s more recent wind farms near the town of Malone, in Fond du Lac County. The 88- turbine project known as Blue Sky/Green Field, has been operational for about a year and a half.

The yellow farm house is an old-fashioned four-square and the vintage barn is attractive, solid and has a brand new roof.

 There is a superb mechanic’s workshop large enough to contain a few vintage cars, tractors, huge pieces of farm equipment, work benches and heavy duty tools. It has a fine concrete floor.

  James is a mechanic and he did most of the work on the shop himself, putting everything he had into getting it just the way he wanted it. He intended to be there awhile.

 There is also a nice sized chicken house and from it comes the pleasant sound of roosters crowing and chickens clucking. James also raises poultry. He’s been breeding and showing prize-winning birds for most of his life.

It’s a tidy little farm with a nice feel to it, so the “For Sale” sign in front of this home comes as a surprise.

James lets me know the for sale sign isn’t something he ever wanted to see there, but the reason for it is clear. Scores of wind turbines surround his home—each as tall as a 40-story building. And the multitude of problems that come with them have made life unbearable. The subject of selling his place clearly pained him. We spoke just a few hours before the realtor held the first open house.

The noise from the turbines is much louder and more bothersome than he was told it would be. The shadow flicker is much more severe than he was told it would be.The turbine problems also include loss of radio, TV and cell phone reception. But the most troubling problem of all has to do with his chickens. 

James has been around chickens his whole life. His grandmother and grandfather raised poultry and he says he took to it right away.  “I can’t remember a time in my life when I wasn’t around chickens.” He shows me a photograph taken by his grandmother of Jim as a toddler. He’s lying on his stomach with a half a dozen baby chicks nestled together on his back looking as content as if they were in a nest.

James Vollmer as a toddler with his baby chicks. Photo taken by his grandmother.

Says James, “I’ve always liked them.”

 He joined 4-H and by the age of nine he was showing chickens at the county fair. He handed me one of his earliest 4-H notebooks. Even at an early age he was a meticulous record keeper, a habit he has never lost. He’s been documenting all that has happened since the wind turbines started up.

 When asked about his chickens, a pained look crosses his face. How could someone who has raised healthy prize-winning poultry his whole life find himself in a situation where he is unable to keep them alive?

 We go into the chicken house together. A sick bird huddles against a wire fence. A few birds move about but seem lethargic. “They shouldn’t be hanging their heads and sitting there like that,” says James, “They should be going outside and running around.”

 He tells me he knew there was trouble when his birds went into a full molt the first winter the turbines were on line. “Then they pretty much quit laying eggs.” He lets me know that a full molt in winter is unusual, birds don’t molt in the winter when they need their feathers most to stay warm. And he’d never had a problem with egg production before. “I didn’t know what was going on.”

 The shadow flicker from the turbines was so severe it woke him up in the morning. Like others I spoke to in the Blue Sky/Green Field project, James said the effect is unbearable. Enormous shadows passing rapidly across his entire home, barn, workshop and chicken house are relentless and inescapable. James, along with many others I spoke with, talked about getting headaches caused by the severe shadows and light flashing on and off inside and outside his house.

 When he called WE Energies to complain, he was sent a form on which he was to record the time, location and duration of the shadow flicker. He did just that and sent it in.

 A representative then contacted James and told him that as far as WE Energies was concerned, the shadow flicker he was experiencing was a non-issue and WE Energies had no plans to remedy the problem.

James sent along a copy of a video he’d made of the shadow flicker in his home. A representative later contacted him and offered to provide window blinds for the windows that were in the video, but would not agree to provide blinds for any of the other windows because James had not recorded them. He made yet another video, and after six months and many phone calls, WE Energies finally installed blinds on his home.

 Now he has to have the blinds completely down and his lights on in the morning. He didn’t like having a dark house or having to use electricity to keep lights on during the day, but he can’t stand the shadow flicker so he had no choice.

 His birds, however, were having a harder time. He tells me chickens have an instinctive fear and stress response to rapidly passing shadows. It signals the approach of predators like hawks and owls. Chickens are also very sensitive to changes in light and darkness.

James noticed the chickens didn’t seem to want to go out doors anymore after the turbines were running. Instead of behaving as they always had and getting the benefits of sunshine, fresh greens and insects, they stayed huddled in the chicken house. Their health began to suffer.

 After a lifetime of successfully raising poultry, James Vollmer’s chickens were no longer thriving. Even the young birds were starting to die. When I visited with him he said he’d lost eight more in the last two weeks. “From twenty white hens, I’m down to eight or nine now.”

 The chickens don’t seem to be the only birds that have been affected since the turbines went on line. James mentions the disappearance of the flocks of barn swallows that had been a fixture on the farm for years. “There used to be so many. We had twenty to thirty nests every year. when I’d cut the grass they’d just be swooping all over the place. Now they’re gone,” he says, And the hummingbirds are gone too.”

 He tried everything he could think of to help his chickens but no matter what he did, the chickens continued to weaken. Then some of his chickens were taken to be raised outside of the wind plant. “The guy that took them told me chickens turned around. They got better and then they were completely fine. When they go live elsewhere they do fine.”

 Though he’s certain the problems are caused by the wind turbines, he says he can’t prove anything. And even if he could, over a years worth of dealings with WE Energies has convinced him it would be useless to even try. He holds no hope of WE Energies looking into it or doing anything about it.

 The frustration, worry and anger this has caused him is evident, and the stress of it all has taken its toll. “I don’t know what to do here, but I know I can’t stay.”

 James Vollmer is leaving behind everything he worked so hard for, his home, the old barn he preserved and roofed, the huge mechanic’s workshop he built to last a lifetime, and the chicken house that once held so many healthy active birds.

 He knows that if he can sell his place at all, he’s going to have to sell at a loss, but remaining is no longer an option for him. “I can’t be happy here anymore. I can’t even stand to be outside anymore.”

  So the ‘For Sale’ sign is up, and the house he didn’t want to leave is clean and ready for the open house. He’s hoping for just the right buyer. He says it’s going have to be someone “who just doesn’t care”

 Someone who doesn’t care about bad radio, TV, and cell phone reception, isn’t bothered by turbine noise loud enough to drown out the crickets at night and make you keep your windows shut all summer. Someone who doesn’t mind flashing shadows and light severe enough to wake you or force you to keep your blinds down and lights on during the day.

And most of all, it has to be someone who won’t ever miss the crowing of a rooster, the clucking of hens, the peeping of chicks, or the sweet lively song of the barn swallow.