by jboullion | Feb 3, 2011 | Uncategorized
Madison – Kerry Schumann, Executive Director of Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters issued the following statement in response to Governor Walker’s State of the State address:
We couldn’t agree more with Governor Walker’s goal of leaving an even better Wisconsin to our children and grandchildren. As the nation as a whole has discovered, the key to accomplishing that goal lies in fully participating in the clean energy economy. Governor Walker’s failure to mention this opportunity paired with his actions in recent weeks speaks volumes.
In his short time as Governor, Governor Walker has introduced legislation to eliminate Wisconsin’s $400 million wind industry, rejected $800 million in mass transit funding (sending jobs to Illinois in the process), and prevented a coal power plant from transitioning to a plant run on homegrown, Wisconsin biofuels.
This week, understandably, we are taking a lot of advice from Vince Lombardi. Wisconsin would do well to remember this one, “We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible.”
It’s time Wisconsin quit treating the clean energy economy as an impossibility. Instead, we must commit – with a “singleness of focus” – to creating the kinds of jobs that will sustain ours and future generations.
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Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to electing conservation leaders to the state legislature and encouraging lawmakers to champion conservation policies that effectively protect Wisconsin’s public health and natural resources. More information can be found at http://conservationvoters.org.
by jboullion | Feb 3, 2011 | Uncategorized
From a letter to the editor of the Dun County News by Carol Johnson, Forest:
As a resident of the State of Wisconsin, I’m extremely disappointed to hear that Governor Walker is proposing ridiculously restrictive setbacks for wind turbines that will make it virtually impossible to build a wind farm anywhere in the state. I understand he is doing this as a “payback” to campaign contributors — Realtors.
As someone who lives in a farming community, I have known Wisconsin government to be “farmer friendly.” Apparently, that is a thing of the past. I guess Walker would like our state to be known as “realtor friendly.”
Wind farms help the farming community remain a farming community; housing developments destroy farming communities. People should know that our representatives worked very diligently to develop reasonable wind turbine siting guidelines for the state.
The governor’s proposal is an attempt to derail those siting guidelines, even though they were prepared with the involvement of many stakeholders, including the general public in public hearings.
Our energy future in this country has been referred to as one of the most important elements of homeland security. The State of Wisconsin has an opportunity to be part of an energy future that includes one of the most viable forms of green energy — wind.
by jboullion | Feb 1, 2011 | Uncategorized
From an article by Lyn Jerde in the Portage Daily Register:
What could be Wisconsin’s largest wind energy project is going up as scheduled, despite a proposal from Gov. Scott Walker that could make future wind farms more challenging to build in the state.
The governor’s proposal calls for a minimum setback of 1,800 feet between neighboring property and the turbine towers in a “large wind energy system” (300 kilowatts or more).
Glacier Hills is a We Energies project whose 90 turbines, on approximately 17,350 acres in the towns of Randolph and Scott, could generate up to 207 megawatts. Construction – including roads leading to the tower sites and a headquarters on Columbia County Highway H in the town of Scott – started in May, and continues this winter with the installation of underground connections that will eventually link each of the turbines to the power grid. The 400-foot towers are scheduled to be built starting this spring.
Andrew Hesselbach, We Energies wind farm project manager, said any new setback rules would not affect the construction of Glacier Hills, which received approval from the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin in January 2010.
And, he noted, “Glacier Hills is already half-completed.”
Walker’s proposal, as outlined in Assembly Bill 9, calls for “the setback distance of at least 1,800 feet,” unless the owners properties adjoining the site where a tower is planned, or property owners separated from the site’s land by a road, agree in writing to a setback of less than 1,800 feet.
Hesselbach was one of 15 members of a wind siting council that the PSC last March to advise the commission on statewide setback rules for wind turbine towers – rules that were scheduled to go into effect March 1.
Those rules set 1,250 feet as a minimum setback – the same setback specified in the PSC’s “certificate of public convenience and necessity” that gave the go-ahead for construction of Glacier Hills.
by jboullion | Feb 1, 2011 | Uncategorized
From an article in The Daily Reporter:
Milwaukee County’s vehicle fleet is becoming more fuel-efficient, thanks to an infusion of Ford Fusion Hybrid vehicles unveiled Monday at Milwaukee County’s Fleet Maintenance facility.
The vehicles will replace 35 aging Chevy Impalas currently used in a variety of county departments that were driven a total of 332,500 miles and cost nearly $40,000 in fuel annually, according to a news release from acting Milwaukee County Executive Lee Holloway.
The new hybrid vehicles are estimated to cost $26,000 in fuel annually — a 35 percent fuel savings – and will save more than 4,400 gallons of petroleum per year, according to the release.
by jboullion | Jan 31, 2011 | Uncategorized
From an article on Political Fact Check:
To some, spinning wind turbines are a majestic source of pollution-free energy. But when they’re proposed for residential areas, opponents often portray them as a menace to healthy, safety, aesthetics and property values.
The rhetoric can get pretty extreme.
When one was proposed in Barrington in 2008, opponents claimed that unnamed “independent medical experts” had found that turbines can cause everything from headaches to heart problems, and that sunlight flashing through the blades can produce a stroboscopic effect that may lead to nausea, dizziness, disorientation and seizures.
So when a massive 427-foot turbine was proposed for Stamp Farm on Route 2 in North Kingstown, it wasn’t surprising that the opposition would echo those claims. One opponent was state Rep. Laurence Ehrhardt of North Kingstown. He co-authored an opinion column published in The Providence Journal with former North Kingstown Town Council President Edward Cooney.
For one of their bullet points, they played the epilepsy card: “The health risk of ‘flicker’ impact created by shadows of blades of turbines poses real and significant health risks, particularly seizures. . . .”
We contacted two epilepsy experts who said the concern was ridiculous because it was so unlikely.
David Mandelbaum, a neurologist and pediatrician at Brown University’s Alpert Medical School, said even if an epileptic is sensitive to light, the flicker has to be at just the right frequency, and that frequency can vary widely from person to person.
Dr. Gregory Kent Bergey, director of the epilepsy center at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, said in an email: “The fact is, the great majority of people with seizures [probably greater than 95 percent] do not have this photosensitivity.” Some patients may experience a brief spasm if they see the sun coming through the trees, “but these seizures are usually readily controlled by medication. I do not tell these patients not to drive in the forest!”
He said “the risk from sun coming through a wind turbine would be very small — the person would first have to be looking at the sun, not just at a turbine, and most of us know not to look at the sun directly. . . . We cannot use this as a reason not to erect wind turbine farms.”
Mandelbaum said he has never seen any reliable documentation that turbines can cause seizures, or any other health problems. “They’re using the epileptic community. It’s clever and it’s nonsense, and I find it personally offensive,” he said.
by jboullion | Jan 31, 2011 | Uncategorized
From an article on Political Fact Check:
To some, spinning wind turbines are a majestic source of pollution-free energy. But when they’re proposed for residential areas, opponents often portray them as a menace to healthy, safety, aesthetics and property values.
The rhetoric can get pretty extreme.
When one was proposed in Barrington in 2008, opponents claimed that unnamed “independent medical experts” had found that turbines can cause everything from headaches to heart problems, and that sunlight flashing through the blades can produce a stroboscopic effect that may lead to nausea, dizziness, disorientation and seizures.
So when a massive 427-foot turbine was proposed for Stamp Farm on Route 2 in North Kingstown, it wasn’t surprising that the opposition would echo those claims. One opponent was state Rep. Laurence Ehrhardt of North Kingstown. He co-authored an opinion column published in The Providence Journal with former North Kingstown Town Council President Edward Cooney.
For one of their bullet points, they played the epilepsy card: “The health risk of ‘flicker’ impact created by shadows of blades of turbines poses real and significant health risks, particularly seizures. . . .”
We contacted two epilepsy experts who said the concern was ridiculous because it was so unlikely.
David Mandelbaum, a neurologist and pediatrician at Brown University’s Alpert Medical School, said even if an epileptic is sensitive to light, the flicker has to be at just the right frequency, and that frequency can vary widely from person to person.
Dr. Gregory Kent Bergey, director of the epilepsy center at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, said in an email: “The fact is, the great majority of people with seizures [probably greater than 95 percent] do not have this photosensitivity.” Some patients may experience a brief spasm if they see the sun coming through the trees, “but these seizures are usually readily controlled by medication. I do not tell these patients not to drive in the forest!”
He said “the risk from sun coming through a wind turbine would be very small — the person would first have to be looking at the sun, not just at a turbine, and most of us know not to look at the sun directly. . . . We cannot use this as a reason not to erect wind turbine farms.”
Mandelbaum said he has never seen any reliable documentation that turbines can cause seizures, or any other health problems. “They’re using the epileptic community. It’s clever and it’s nonsense, and I find it personally offensive,” he said.
