Wolfe Island Wind complex impacting critical scenic resources far beyond the project zoning footprint.
With Clayton, NY’s proposal to change their zoning to ban
industrial wind development in their town, the whole debate about the best
approach to protect our towns and region has resurfaced. One argument says ban wind development
outright in your zoning, the side I have been on for a decade, and the other argument
is to attempt to be “reasonable”, and appease the state and not ban wind energy
but try to “regulate it” with traditional zoning methods, primarily setbacks
from sensitive resources at various distances.
In light of Clayton’s move, I thought it might be good once
again to demonstrate why traditional zoning fails badly to protect a community,
or a region from industrial wind development.
Especially one so sensitive as the 1000 Islands/ Golden Crescent region with
its vast flat water veiwsheds.
This is a bit long but I think critical to the understanding of this debate, so I hope you will examine this carefully.
First we need to understand some zoning basics.
Traditional (Euclidean) zoning attempts to separate uses,
usually in designated districts, so they don’t negatively impact each other or
cause health, safety, welfare or aesthetic conflcits. The method of mitigation is separation by
various appropriate distances. Basically
the further away the lesser the negative impact. Very straight forward basic zoning technique.
For example a town might not want an industrial factory with
massive buildings, noise, and lights, or a scrap yard and their impacts near high
quality single family homes, So they would form an industrial district, and far
enough away from it would be residential
district or other sensitive districts.
Distance is usually an effective key factor to mitigate negative impacts.
For example if I drive several miles from the industrial
zone, the industrial impacts will mostly be mitigated or disappear.
Another technique used where uses conflict is screening mitigation
. For example the scrap yard near a
neighborhood might be mitigated by berms, vegetation or attractive fencing or a
setbacks from roads or nearby neighborhoods. And that usually works.
Often height zoning restrictions help mitigate impacts. A municipality might draft height restrictions
for aesthetic reasons. This way if you
live in a residential zone you are not looking at the impacts of some type of
tower or building that does not fit the aesthetic quality of the town or your
district.
Now these basic zoning techniques are used widely and fairly
effectively around the civilized world.
The mitigation, height, and use separation by distance zoning techniques
can be very effective for structures and uses of typical sizes in rural or
suburban areas.
But then along comes industrial wind energy with towers that
are now reaching over 600 ft. in height along with flashing lights at night and
frequently spinning blades with a rotor area bigger than a football field.
Wolfe Island Wind Complex. This is zoning protection?????
Keeping in mind that movement is a very significant
attractant to the human eye. The eyes detect
movement quickly.
Industrial wind energy essentially completely defies
traditional zoning as examined above, primarily because of height which is absolutely
essential to wind turbine efficiency.
That’s why they keep getting taller. Consider that in some cases in your rural areas numerous wind
turbines will mean many taller structures than are in some fair size cities! Study I did a few years ago that indicated a
huge city the size of Los Angeles had something like 30 buildings over 400 ft. which
was the common size of industrial wind turbines back then. Now
the state, and in some cases your town officials, and the wind companies are suggesting you
should accept hundreds of these city sized structures on the traditionally
scenic rural landscape of your region.
Structures, unlike buildings, that have rather radical movement! This would be an insane invasive environmental
transformation of your area in a relatively short time, and somehow many of
your town officials are trying to delude you into thinking they can effectively
manage this type of radical change with out moded little provincial and impotent
zoning approaches. Seriously?????
Don’t be fooled!
So let’s say I live in a nice peaceful aesthetic residentially
zoned district. A place people have moved for aesthetics,
protection from noise, and other negative impacts you would not want in your neighborhood,
and also to protect their home as their prime investment.
Yet my community has decided to allow 100 wind turbines nearly
600 ft. tall and try to “regulate” them..
An industrial wind factory complex that will cover much of my town…maybe
the majority of it, since another essential of wind energy is it must be spread
out over many square miles to be effective.
In this community, town officials have decided to allow this use and
decide they can mitigate it with traditional zoning methods. In fact to accomplish this, they often create
a monster called a wind overlay district, that actually overlays some of the
other town districts since wind energy has to be spread out so far. This faulty decision is an immediate frontal attack
on the district separation protection method of protection.
So now from my residential zone, I can see hear, and will be
likely disturbed by, on a regular basis, a great deal of the 100 turbines a few
miles away or even closer in some cases.
Despite the protections I was assured by my town in zoning in my residential
district, for my family and property investment, I now can clearly see and
suffer the impacts from my supposed protected district from an industrial wind
use in districts much further away that
were supposed to mitigate the very impacts I am now confronted with.
In this case the district separation zoning, mitigation and
height restrictions have just been
rendered useless, and essentially one invasive huge industrial use dominates all districts in town.
For example let’s consider if you live in the highly
aesthetic, desirable natural water setting of Cape Vincent’s Island District…for
example Carleton Island that gets a sweeping view of the entire town, even the
slightly elevated town interior on the mainland as it slowly rises toward the
back of the town. The same place, by the
way, industrial wind development will take place. Your designated Island District will offer no
protection, particularly viewshed protection, from ANY wind development in town,
regulated or not. On the south shore you
will have a front row seat 24/7 to the negative impacts of industrial wind
several miles away in another zoning district.
If you live on the north shore of Carleton Island you suffer the impacts
of the Wolfe Island Wind complex where you had no input to their zoning decisions
to allow industrial wind turbines.
Now consider for example even another town several miles
away that has no say in your zoning decision. Particularly if there is flat water somewhere
between the towns allowing unobstructed views. You will suffer from neighboring
town’s allowing the massive tall moving structures
that cannot be effectively mitigated in
any way. Again, traditional zoning of
industrial wind, that far too many towns have deferred to, has been render
useless by industrial wind and is a miserable failure to protect citizens in
any particular town, or even the region.
In the last decade we
have sadly learned from Wolfe Island that these structures have invasive impacts
that can reach out 30 miles, which impacts communities far far beyond the
original zoning jurisdiction where industrial wind is allowed and supposedly “regulated”. Especially in a region like ours with so many
flat water viewsheds. The Wolfe Island
Wind Farm is a vivid unmistakable example of what I am talking about.
Wolfe Island"s giant wind turbines as seen from well within Cape Vincent. A vivid
example how a community is badly impacted and had no say in the matter of the siting.
The new turbines proposed for our area are reaching 200 ft. taller than the turbines seen
her! It is ridiculous to think a traditional zoning setback approach can control this
insanity. Keeping this picture in mind the CV zoning law drafters thought turbines placed
about 1.25 miles from the Seaway Trail in CV would protect scenic assets. It is absurd!
Put very frankly traditional zoning is a sucker’s game the
wind developers and NYS love for you to be drawn into.
Essentially the wind companies know exactly what is
happening and that traditional zoning is pointless to mitigate their
structures. That is why they are willing
to use offsets like bribes like maybe to renovate the town , hall or put a new
fence around the cemetery, or maybe donate to some other cause. This is intended to make you look the other
way and ignore or tolerate the impacts they know cannot be mitigated despite your
town’s delusion it can control the impacts.
BP and Acciona in CV years ago in their environmental
statements didn’t even try to hide it, and admitted outright their turbines
would dominate and be out of context with the CV landscape and cause a dramatic
change to the town viewshed. In a sense
they are more clever and honest than the
town officials who have been duped into believing they can somehow mitigate
industrial wind. The wind companies themselves are admitting a reality that
some town officials just refuse in ignorance or arrogance to accept
in a desperate attempt to believe they still have control. It is a dangerous delusion if you truly intend to protect the 1000 Islands region.
If one considers all this carefully and logically, the only
true protection in an area like the 1000 Islands is not town by town, traditional
zoning with endless debate over useless ineffective setbacks which industrial
wind clearly and easily overwhelms. And by the way creates a lot of wasted
energy deflected away from the obvious problem to protect the region.
The only true
protection of any value is for towns to unify their zoning to prohibit
industrial wind, at least so it impacts no part of the 1000 Islands and Golden Crescent
or Eastern Lake Ontario. viewshed. This
should be backed by the counties, and county zoning boards, and influential
environmental groups. One must also
consider the rapidly increasing heights of wind technology which leaves
traditional zoning far behind well into the future.
Many towns are so mind paralyzed by this new threat they are
fighting a rapidly moving invasive new technology, and the attached wind PR
machine, and overreaching state regulations, with old now out moded land use
techniques and political strategies that
fail to address the new problem appropriately.
And in effect the report done by a reputable company
concerning land use impacts done for the SASS effort said what is actually painfully
obvious. Tall structures like wind
turbines cannot in fact be mitigated here and should not be allowed. The Thousand Island Land Trust seems to have
reached a similar conclusion and is applauding Clayton’s new direction.
Clayton is taking leadership proposing to prohibit
industrial wind and making the only true decision that is proportional to control
the invasive impacts of industrial wind energy.
That is why it is so important to unify and support the
Clayton decision to ban industrial wind in their town.
A former visual simulation from either BP or Acciona, I don't remember,
showing the impact on the CV village waterfront.
Otherwise the wind developers and the state will take us
apart as a region town by town in a divide and conquer scheme by encouraging us
to use a zoning tool that is impotent, backed by a state system with a nuclear
option willing to override the rights of our communities.
It is time to stand up!!!
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