Fake science won't beat defeat
LeBlanc, and may even weaken the opponents' case
By Will Collette
We are approaching another critical moment in Charlestown’s long-running
soap opera over developer Larry LeBlanc’s plan to build two huge wind turbines
overlooking Route One. On May 21, the Zoning Board of Review (ZBR) will hold a
hearing on LeBlanc’s application for a Special Use Permit.
Having been thrown out of court twice by two different judges, Whalerock’s opponents (formerly Ill Wind RI, but recently re-branded as
Coalition to Stop Industrial Size Wind
Turbines or CTSISWT, pronounced “sits-wit”)
and the Town of Charlestown are pretty much out of legal options.
CTSISWT just sent out a mailing to every household in town to try to mobilize opposition and to pressure
the ZBR. The mailer makes some legitimate points but is so loaded with fake
science that it could end up backfiring. CTSISWT is setting up a viable appeal
by LeBlanc if they succeed in pressuring the ZBR into denying the special use
permit based on flimsy scientific claims, especially on health effects.
I really would hate to see them screw this up. I do not want to see the
Whalerock project get built, but for different reasons than the ones the
CTSISWT is pushing.
 |
| Ron Areglado |
Larry LeBlanc is very comfortable using the courts and has had 100% more success
than CTSISWT. Getting the ZBR to rule against Whalerock, but for the wrong
reasons could only set up another round of lawsuits.
But it seems that CTSISWT, led by Ron and Maureen Areglado and backed up
by Mike Chambers just can’t seem to see that their health effects argument
could, if you’ll pardon the pun, blow back in their faces.
In every newspaper letter and news release, in their public forums, mass
mailing and in their materials sent to the Zoning Board, the Areglados and
Chambers keep bringing up health claims that have been pretty thoroughly
debunked. The materials they submitted to the ZBR are loaded with this stuff (click here to read, and a note to the Areglados – the town solicitor representing
the ZBR is BOB Craven, or if you want to be formal, Robert, but not
“William” as you call him – pg. 2).
Dueling Experts?
Public Referendum?
They seem to want to set up a “dueling experts” scenario where their “experts” debate the merits
of alleged health effects of wind effects (rather than winning). “Dueling
experts” is a nightmare in the courts and in organizing.
It also seems as if the CTSISWT expects to sway the ZBR not only with its
fake science and dubious experts but also with the weight of public opinion, as
if this was a referendum. The Zoning Board is supposed to act more like a
judicial body, less subject to public pressure than an elected, overtly
political body like the Town Council or Planning Commission.
If the CTSISWT gives people sketchy “facts” and directs them to go bury
the ZBR members with them, they could be setting up yet another court victory for
LeBlanc.
Does “Wind Turbine
Syndrome” Exist?
Let’s examine the key “facts” the CTSISWT wants the public – and the ZBR
– to believe and the experts they have to back them up.
CTSISWT held a workshop where a guy from Falmouth, MA talked about his
personal experiences with some bad turbines. Falmouth bought some obsolete wind
turbines from the equivalent of the scratch-and-dent section. The turbines have
since bothered some of the neighbors. Rather than focus on the fact that the
Falmouth turbines were crap, the neighbors, like CTSISWT, insist on making the
problem out to be more than it is.
They have embraced the dubious medical claim of “Wind Turbine Syndrome,”
one that was thoroughly investigated by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and
Department of Environmental Protection. These agencies determined that the
syndrome, such as it is, seems to be more related to the sufferers being
overwrought and perhaps the victims of group hysteria.
Mike Chambers doubled down in a Letter to the Westerly Sun where he tried to link their session with the
Falmouth wind guy with the workshop on national health care reform sponsored by Charlestown Democrats.
After rambling through all the health effects “facts” and citing shaky
scientific studies (including two that relied on “self-reported” information), Chambers concluded that “To deal with the adverse
effects of wind turbines, many Charlestown residents will need a national
health care program.” As long as it has
extensive mental health coverage, I would add.
 |
| Maureen Areglado: thinks wind turbines are "the devil." |
CTSISWT has gotten so obsessed with their health effects beliefs that
they have abandoned their former position that they were not opposed to wind power
in general and in fact supported off-shore wind.
CTSISWT leader Maureen Areglado recently testified against the Deepwater off-shore wind project, citing the health effects. Health effects on
whom, I don’t know, since Deepwater will be miles off the coast of Block Island.
"Do not sell your
soul to the devil to get 15% off your electric bills,” she was quoted as
saying by the Block Island Times. “There is not enough
science out there yet. What’s the big rush? If it harms one person it is not
worth it.”
I recommend you read this excellent article on the “nocebo effect” that ran in Slate. It describes how medical and scientific misinformation can create
actual symptoms in people through the power of suggestion. If Whalerock
actually does get built – and I hope it doesn’t – I suspect that the Areglados
and Chambers and others who buy into the health effects quackery will no doubt
come down with their own psychosomatic wind turbine syndrome.
What
do crashing waves, a purring kitten, Navy submarines and your stereo have in
common?
One of the relatively new pseudo-medical wrinkles CTSISWT
has introduced into the debate is the dreadful sounding specter of “infrasound.” This is low-frequency mostly inaudible sound that is generated by a wide
variety of sources ranging from earthquakes and thunderstorms to ocean surf.
Infrasound can come from a variety of animal sources: whales and elephants use
it to communicate. A cat’s purr and the wing flapping of migratory birds can
generate it. Man-made sources include everything from, yes, wind turbines to
Navy submarines to woofers in your stereo speaker set.
In Charlestown, the most comparable sources of
infrasound we have to that generated by wind turbines is ocean waves – a very
low, repetitive, persistent, partly inaudible sound that many find soothing,
and pay extra to get. When the roar of Route One traffic dies down late at
night, I can hear it and like it.
But apparently, CTSISWT views infrasound as a
problem that surpasses all the other noises in our agrarian paradise (chain
saws, traffic noise, gunshots, wood chippers, ATVs and motorcycles, barking
dogs, howling coyotes, screeching fisher cats, bahhhing goats, clucking
chickens and crowing roosters).
 |
| Bud Vincent - expert in underwater acoustics |
On May 8, CTSISWT is holding a workshop with Harold “Bud” Vincent, an associate professor of ocean engineering at URI. Dr. Vincent will “explain how infrasonic sound is created by turbines,
and how it can affect humans” according to the CTSISWT news release.
The problem is that Bud Vincent is not an expert on wind turbines.
He is an expert on Navy
submarines and on underwater
acoustics. According to his Linked In resume, he is at URI under the Naval Reserve Science and Technology Program #38, which has
nothing to do with wind energy.
One of his URI colleagues told me, “This
is the first time that I have ever heard of him working with wind turbines.”
I’m
sure Bud Vincent is good at what he does. The Navy needs guys like him to help
them stop killing 2,000 dolphins and whales (and deafening 16,000) each year with its sonar. He
would be my go-to guy if I ever needed an expert opinion on torpedoes. I could
have used him on my New London story. But I don’t understand what useful purpose it serves to bring
him in on the Whalerock fight.
I suppose it may make some sense to examine infrasound as an effect,
since some research suggests that it can make some sensitive individuals feel a
sense of fear or anxiety. A British researcher, Vic Tandy, suggests that when people report encounters with the supernatural, such
as ghost sightings, they may actually be reacting to inaudible infrasound
exposure coming from a natural or manmade source, not necessarily a ghost or
hobgoblin.
Yet
another subject for the experts to debate. Next, the Areglados can bring in an
expert on hobgoblins.
Is Whalerock
financially viable?
Is
it too late to make a deal with LeBlanc? I don’t think so because I don’t
believe Whalerock is a commercially viable project. Land-based turbines in
Rhode Island are marginally viable and are getting less so with time, according
to data collected by URI
from a number of locations, including the MET Tower that was once located in
Ninigret Park. However, a URI wind expert told me “this location [Whalerock] is one of the better [on-shore] ones within
the state in terms of available wind power.”
 |
| What the Whalerock turbines will look like from Route 1 |
I
asked another wind energy expert about the viability of Whalerock and he
pointed out that CTSISWT is correct when they say the manufacturers of
industrial sized turbines generally advise against citing them near residential
neighborhoods.
That expert also did his own computer-generated depiction of
what Whalerock would look like – see illustration, right – and it’s not entirely
dissimilar to the one the former Ill Wind and now the re-branded CTSISWT has
distributed.
He
also told me “If a bank needs to be
involved at all, then someone will look at the numbers and see wind velocities
that won’t produce rated power. Further, these are wind velocities that
are declining over time.”
Indeed URI
atmospheric scientist John Merrill was just quoted in the Westerly Sun underscoring that point: “There’s
widespread evidence that over the land, wind speeds appear to be decreasing
slightly. Strangely, when you go over the ocean, the opposite is true.”
My
wind expert continued, “LeBlanc and Ill
Wind (now re-branded as CTSISWT) seem
like a pair matched in heaven. It seems as though LeBlanc would get less
for his land if there wasn’t this impending doom of the giant turbines.
So if Ill Wind gets their way, the town can purchase the land for a more
appropriate price.”
Once
we know more about exactly what kind of wind system LeBlanc really plans to
install on the moraine, it will be possible to calculate its economic prospects
with more precision. There are public tools you can use for this, such as the Cost of Renewal Energy Spreadsheet Tool
(CREST) that you can download from the National Renewal Energy Laboratory by clicking here. You can then
plug in LeBlanc’s data, the same way that LeBlanc’s bankers are likely to do.
Decommissioning
costs will have to be included in Whalerock’s Cost of Energy (COE). Any
turbine project needs to consider the cost of the equipment, plus the
foundation and installation costs, maintenance costs and decommissioning costs.
Investors will have to compare those costs to the amount of energy likely to be
created over the 20-year lifecycle of the turbines. And that
presumes Whalerock would last 20 years.
 |
| The NK Green turbine in North Kingstown. Up and running without complaint |
Even
though turbine manufacturers advise against siting industrial turbines in
residential areas, that’s not a hard and fast rule. We have a close-by notable
exception in North Kingstown in the NK Green neighborhood
near Wickford Junction off Route 102. That huge turbine has been in operation
since December smack dab in the middle of a new residential development and has
operated without complaint.
That
developer was willing to lose money on the turbine because he hopes to develop
many more of them around Rhode Island. LeBlanc may also decide to push ahead
with his own money, if only to get back at his opponents.
But
if he managed to get a bank or other investors to buy in, the wind expert I
consulted worries about the downside that would occur “if the investors find that when the first maintenance bill comes in,
that they haven’t earned enough to cover it and hence shut the turbines
down. This happens with poorly sited wind turbines. Derelict
turbines would be bad for the town and bad for the wind industry. Most turbines have a 20 year life cycle. Regardless of what plays out, it would be a
good idea to include a plan to remove any turbines from any site in
Charlestown, when their life cycle has concluded.”
Other practical
arguments against Whalerock
There
are good arguments the CTSISWT could make against Whalerock that are less
likely to provoke a dueling experts response than their health claims. Among
them is one of its original arguments that Whalerock would be an eyesore,
especially since Route One is officially designated a scenic highway. CCA Town
Council boss Tom Gentz cited that fact as one of the reasons why he supported
buying LeBlanc’s land for open space.
Whalerock could affect property values, though that would
provoke a experts' debate. There was a very recent court decision in Ontario, Canada where a court supported a local claim of loss of
property values. Hardly definitive for the United States, but it’s easier to
establish potential equity loss than “wind turbine syndrome.”
There’s
also the fish and wildlife card. The US Fish and Wildlife Service has extensive
power under law to protect migratory birds, endangered or threatened species
and bald eagles. The FWS is already concerned about the effects of wind
turbines on the critters under their protection and recently issued new guidelines.
Our FWS guy, Charlie Vandemoer has already inventoried the
Whalerock site and noted the species of interest, including the migratory birds
that go over Charlestown using the great Atlantic Flyway.
 |
| Bald eagle on Watchaug Pond. Photo by Gerry Matteo |
And
we’ve now had bald eagles regularly spotted at Watchaug Pond. I’ve seen them
flying over my house just two miles from the Whalerock site. See the photo (right) taken April 12 by Gerry Matteo of an eagle at Watchaug Pond. The
USFWS has legal powers to protect these eagles from harm.
Look,
I don’t want Whalerock to be built. I think it would be a mistake on many
levels and a bad thing for Charlestown. It could also turn out to be a bad
thing for wind energy development which I continue to believe offers us great
hope for the future – with the right technology in the right places.
I
spent 20 years helping grassroots groups to defeat undesirable projects in their community. Not to brag,
but to state a fact: we were very good at it and learned the formula for
winning. Ill Wind, now CTSISWT, has done the opposite of what I
used to advise groups to do. So far. And that includes picking ridiculous group
names. But they can still win if they stop playing Don Quixote.
If
they insist on challenging LeBlanc to the bitter end, at least give the ZBR
some unimpeachable legal grounds to deny him the special use permit. Wind
turbine syndrome is not it, but there are other arguments that might have some
slim chance of working – and withstanding the inevitable appeal.
Make a deal
that’s good for Charlestown
 |
| FWS Charlie Vandemoer thinks the LeBlanc land would make an excellent open space acquisition |
I continue
to believe the best way to end this crisis is to negotiate a purchase price for LeBlanc’s 81 acres with the idea
of permanently setting aside that land as open space.
At one point, the
Charlestown Citizens Alliance Party’s two top leaders, Town Council Boss Tom
Gentz and Planning Commissar Ruth Platner also felt strongly that this is the
best fate for that land.
Click here to see them
both speak in favor of buying LeBlanc’s land for open space at the June 15,
2011 Town Council meeting.
Charlie
Vandemoer who runs the Ninigret National Wildlife Refuge also agreed, and wrote a detailed argument
for taking the land as open space.
The
simplest path to victory is to negotiate a fair deal with Larry LeBlanc. I
think almost everyone in town would agree that when this is all over, we want
those 81 acres to stay natural. The main reason why LeBlanc’s offer to sell was
rejected in 2011 was because the hot heads leading the opposition, the same
people leading CTSISWT now, didn’t want to see LeBlanc make any money.
LeBlanc
is determined to either sell that land or do something with it, including not
just wind turbines, but other things Charlestown does not want. We have the money
to make the deal.
Let’s
stop fooling around with fake science and make the deal.
cd
Just then they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that
rise from that plain. And no sooner did Don Quixote see them that he said to
his squire, "Fortune is guiding our affairs better than we ourselves could
have wished. Do you see over yonder, friend Sancho, thirty or forty hulking
giants? I intend to do battle with them and slay them.
With their spoils we
shall begin to be rich for this is a righteous war and the removal of so foul a
brood from off the face of the earth is a service God will bless."
"What giants?" asked Sancho Panza.
"Those you see over there," replied his master,
"with their long arms. Some of them have arms well nigh two leagues in
length."
"Take care, sir," cried Sancho. "Those over there
are not giants but windmills. Those things that seem to be their arms are sails
which, when they are whirled around by the wind, turn the millstone."
—Part 1, Chapter VIII. Of the valourous Don Quixote's success in
the dreadful and never before imagined Adventure of the Windmills, with other
events worthy of happy record.
