This Issue

I am married to an artist, so I’d never say that aesthetics are not important. But I was surprised to read that some Americans abhor the sight of windmills—the new high-powered wind turbines springing up on both coasts, near the Great Lakes, and on windy plains from Texas to Minnesota.

In this issue "Catch the Wind" explains the recent advances in wind technology and discusses drawbacks, including their visual impact.

The big problem with wind turbines is not their function, or even their form, which is, after all, as pleasing as a pinwheel. The problem is they are big.

So big you could see them from the shores of Cape Cod or the islands of Martha’s Vineyard or Nantucket if they go up as planned in Nantucket Sound, over the protests of many residents. The 130 turbines would rise 30 stories above the ocean floor at half-mile intervals, roughly three to 13 miles offshore. Size, however, depends on your vantage point. Viewed from shore, the towers would look more like toothpicks on the horizon.

In upstate New York a couple imagined the worst when they discovered the rural parcel they’d purchased was next door to a proposed wind farm. They decided to sue the real estate agent and seller. Arguing that the blighted view would be especially painful after the years the man had devoted to environmental causes, the lawyer requested $2 million in punitive damages, as well as the original purchase price and closing costs.

In West Virginia some homeowners who look out at the Allegheny Mountains do not want to see any more wind turbines. In their view, a line of 27 turbines has already damaged what seemed a timeless picture.

In a way, all of these people see the boundaries of their property stretching as far as their eyes can see. The value of their property, they say, will diminish if industrial-sized turbines break up their panorama. Someone has coined a term for this area within eyeshot: the viewshed.

Defensiveness is a natural reaction when someone proposes a change in your back yard, or viewshed—or your audio-shed or aroma-shed, for that matter.

What’s harder, and arguably more important, to gauge is the reaction of wildlife when a large foreign object shows up in their habitat. What is it like to be a bird living in grassland when workers move in and build towers? Would a bird see them as trees? Would it still recognize its home as grassland? Might a grassland bird’s natural defense be to move away from the tall treelike shapes where hawks might roost?

In a four-year study of birds and wind turbines on Buffalo Ridge conducted for Xcel Energy, researchers found "seven of 22 species of grassland breeders showed reduced use near turbines." They speculated that the birds might have been disturbed by turbine noise, maintenance activity, and loss of habitat due to maintenance roads and gravel pads around the turbines. The possibilities are many; and clearly, researchers will need to keep an eye on the birds as sites are assessed for future development. Location of the turbines will be critical for protecting wildlife habitat.

Conservationists must try to imagine a wildlife view of many landscapes. Kim Alan Chapman made a bird’s perspective the subject of his research on land use in the Twin Cities. In his story on page 22, he reports his findings and suggests ways to make metropolitan areas more hospitable to a variety of birds.

Meanwhile, in the Allegheny Mountains, many local residents think wind turbines can improve their lot—aesthetically and environmentally. Coal stripped from open-pit mines on mountaintops has long fueled the region’s big power plant. Particles from 800-foot smokestacks pollute the air, dropping acid rain on forests and casting a haze that obscures the view for hundreds of miles.

The most beautiful thing about wind turbines is not visible at all: It’s cleanliness—clean energy. That enormous benefit may not always offset the drawbacks of wind-fueled energy, but it ought to make us think twice about tilting at giant windmills as if they were monsters.

Kathleen Weflen, editor

kathleen.weflen@state.mn.us