by Michael Vickerman

Clean energy advocates and developers have been learning the hard way that favorable public policies and broad public support for renewable electricity alternatives do not necessarily translate into immediate acceptance of specific proposals.

Since late September, residents of the Town of Addison in Washington County have been grappling with a proposed windpower installation on farmland several miles west of West Bend and about 45 miles northwest of downtown Milwaukee. The proposal envisions installing 33 NEG Micon wind turbines, each with a rated capacity of 900 kW, on 70-meter towers clustered within a four mile by one mile swath of land paralleling U.S. Highway 41. The turbines would be built and operated by FPL Energy, which last year constructed a 56-turbine, 42 MW installation near Clear Lake, Iowa.

This project is notable in several respects. Power from the Addison project would be sold to Wisconsin Electric Power and Alliant Energy, enabling them to satisfy in full the renewable power mandate contained in the Electric Reliability Act of 1998 (often called Act 204). As proposed, the turbines should generate about 75 million kilowatt-hours a year, roughly three times the output from Madison Gas & Electric's 17-turbine 11.2 MW installation in Kewaunee County, which currently holds the distinction of being the largest wind energy installation east of the Mississippi. Also, it will be the Addison Town Board, not the Public Service Commission, who will decide the fate of this project.

While this project is strongly supported by area farmers and their friends and families, there is vocal opposition to the project, mostly from people residing in nearby subdivisions. Calling themselves the Addison Preservation Committee, the opposition group is pressuring the Addison Town Board to reject FPL's proposal. Project opponents are recycling the usual NIMBY complaints, claiming that the turbines are unsightly, noisy, will kill birds and produce stray voltage, and will lower property values in the area.

Notwithstanding the aesthetic complaints, which are subjective, the claims that relate to the turbines' physical impact can be objectively measured. An independent consulting firm recently determined that noise levels from MG&E's wind farm fall within the limits specified in the town's permit. As FPL's project will employ longer setbacks than MG&E's project, meeting Addison's noise standard should not prove difficult.

Tom Beane, an independent consultant specializing in stray voltage concerns, reviewed the project's underground wiring scheme and found no reason for concern. In a letter to local farmers, Beane wrote: "I am confident that this wind farm installation will have no electrical effect on the surrounding dairy farms. " No one has able to identify any instance where a windpower project reduced the value of neighboring properties. Yet project opponents continue to voice this and other fears as though they were fact.

Despite the suburban development encroaching on their lands, the host landowners wish to maintain their properties as working farms. Under the terms of the FPL proposal, host farmers would lease a tiny patch of land to harvest the natural energy that flows over their farm, for which they would receive a lucrative return over the project's life. With commodity prices at historic lows and development pressures on the rise, Addison's family farmers have come to view windpower as an economic lifeline that will enable them to keep the land in agricultural production.

Landowners in the project zone recognize the necessity of mobilizing local support to push the project through the approval process. With the help of family members and friends in the area, they organized themselves into a group named Taxpayers for Addison Wind Farm. In just two months, this group wrote and distributed a newsletter, launched a petition drive in support of the wind farm (see attached petition), and organized a wind energy forum last December in Slinger. RENEW Wisconsin has been busy too. In addition to circulating pro-wind farm petitions around the state, RENEW Wisconsin regularly posts project-related news and notices, along with resolutions in favor of the Addison wind farm.

The Federal Aviation Administration sent a letter in January requesting that five of the 33 towers be lowered or moved, forcing FPL Energy to withdraw its application for the time being.  Once it finds new sites for these turbines, FPL will submit a revised site plan to the Addison Town Board, probably in early April. A public hearing will be held later that month. In all likelihood the Town Board will decide whether to accept or reject FPL's wind farm proposal by June 1.

Wisconsin's ability to add clean energy into its electrical energy mix hinges on the outcome of this siting battle. For further information about the Addison Wind Farm, visit RENEW Wisconsin's web site at www.renewwisconsin.org. To request a petition in support of the wind farm, contact Michael Vickerman at RENEW Wisconsin. Tel.: (608) 255-4044. E-mail: mvickerman@renewwisconsin.org.