The Lincoln County Commission holds a public hearing on two proposed wind tower ordinances on Tuesday, December 27. The setbacks ordinance would increase the required minimum distance between a wind turbine and the nearest habitable structure from three times the tower height to three quarters of a mile. It would allow all property holders within the setback zone to waive that requirement and allow siting of a tower within 1,000 feet of habitable structures. Lincoln County’s wind tower setback is already significantly larger than the greater of 500 feet or 1.1 times tower height required by state law. The noise ordinance would drop the maximum decibels of a turbine from 65 dB (louder than restaurant conversation, quieter than a vacuum cleaner) to 50 dB during the day (living room conversation) and 45 dB overnight. The point of measurement would change from the nearest property line to the nearest wall of the nearest dwelling.
John Hult reports that opponents and proponents would like to see the wind tower ordinances go to a public vote.
The city of Sioux Falls south of 57th Street represents about 60 percent of Lincoln County’s population. Harrisburg and Tea are the second- and third-largest cities.
None of those cities would see a high concentration of wind turbines under the current proposal, but they would have a say in the county-wide zoning rules and a share of any tax revenue generated.
A referendum would require collection of at least 1,732 valid signatures within 20 days of the day the commission’s final decision is formally published [John Hult, “Sioux Falls Voters Could Decide on Lincoln County Wind,” that Sioux Falls paper, 2016.12.11].
Local wind power opponent Winnie Peterson says project promoters Dakota Power Community Wind can’t build the project safely. Oddly, I haven’t found on record from Peterson or her anti-wind agitators any opposition to the Dakota Access pipeline that runs under their county. According to KSTP, the company that will operate Dakota Access when it comes online, Energy Transfer Partners subsidiary Sunoco Logistic, has had 274 reported hazardous material leaks in the past decade, more than any other company in the U.S. But hey, we all choose the bees under bonnets.
Further distinguishing itself from Dakota Access, Dakota Power Community Wind also isn’t putting any landowner at risk of eminent domain. If folks don’t want wind turbines on their property, DPCW can’t force their way onto their land the way “abusive” Energy Transfer Partners did. The waiver in the proposed turbine setback ordinance is also entirely voluntary: if even one affected landowner dissents, that tower doesn’t happen.
Voters trying to weigh economic development potential against impact on property values can read a variety of articles compiled by the National Association of Realtors. I’m not sure if I can declare a scientific consensus, but I will speculate that if Donald Trump doesn’t like wind turbines, they can’t be all bad.
The anti-wind people’s true objection is purely aesthetics. The other stuff
(noise, flicker, dead birds and so on – some of it pseudo-science) is simply the window dressing on their argument. That explains their lack of objection to DAPL. Out of sight – out of mind.
Richard, I do wonder about the aesthetics when I zoom along I-29 at night and see the great see of blinking red beacons on the Brookings County wind turbines. By day they seem far less obtrusive, even pleasing to see… but then I-29 is a bit removed from those turbines. By night, that mass of red blinkers could be bothersome… but at least the builders have moved away from those awful white strobes that lit up the whole countryside.
The project I worked on in ND this Summer addressed that red blinking stuff by having radar sensors as part of the install, so the blinkers only come on when there are actually aircraft in the proximity. There are solutions to the issues outside of out-right banning. Unless of course, those aren’t really the issues.
I love the smell of Morrells, I love the sound of a rock quarry blast, and seeing windmills (big and small) dotting the countryside. In all cases, it reminds me of good people working for the betterment of society and all the blessings of living here.
One evening, I’m having an adult beverage and a person complained about Morrells. When I told him to go to move to the Black Hills where everything smells like pine, he said my job is here. My response and so it is for the people working at Morrells. Not in my backyard is the ultimate in selfishness and a lack of gratitude.
Troy Boy would “love” a slaughter house, gravel pit and a dozen windmills surrounding his Country Club, wouldn’t he? He has a respite from the noise where anyone trying to sleep next to a “brown noise”, ion filled atmospheric windmill situation may think more critically.
Wind turbines should be designated and dedicated English Sparrow and European Starling slaughter machines. Each of these birds at birth should be assigned a turbine to fly into as soon as they are fledged, if the cat don’t get them sooner.
As for the red lights you need to be several miles away to fully appreciate how many there truly are in a given wind farm. I can see only one from my living room boudoir in the wintertime and only four lights from the summer camp upstairs at night.
Porter, figure out the prevailing wind pattern and then plant a massive hog Cafo just upwind from the country club. They can ruin a picnic worse than red ants. In iowa they can be as close as one quarter mile from the nearest occupied dwelling. Yummy. Maybe add a rendering facility. They are usually good for some rotten smells.
I always look at windmills with a sense of whimsy, like giant pinwheels on the country side that do the community good and move our energy policy into the future and away fr suicidal fossil fuels. If they take the bird killing workload off our cats and few skyscrapers in the state and get dishonest NIMBY neighbors out of my backyard, so much the better. I’ll take two!
Porter,
This country club you keep referring to is probably a quarter of mile from the largest quarry in the state and well within earshot of its blasting when the wind is from the north. Also, every other weekend it is in the flight path of the National Guard airplanes practicing which basically is deafening every few minutes all afternoon. All the noises of a healthy and safe country.
If we can’t have hydro-power, wind power, nuclear power, and coal power, how are we supposed to heat our homes, power our factories and offices? It’s kinda cold here this morning and it was nice having the furnace running this morning when I got out of bed.
Troy, Now I feel sorry for you that you can’t afford a better Country Club. I guess that’s why they changed the name. We love hydro power but need no more new dams. We love wind power but need no greedy owners infringing on the privacy of nearby dwellers. We love nuclear power but need none on the coast near a fault line with a Fukushima-like boiling water reactor. Burning coal kills fish and pheasants and we don’t love that. Conflating the cold where you live (low 50’s in CO today) and the need for pollution is a direct attempt at misleading the readers to salve the obloquy of your thrasonical Republican agenda.
Richard—radar sensors? That’s cool! You’re saying the tower has a sensor that picks up the radar signal beamed from the airplanes, right? Is that system reliable enough? I like that idea: less light pollution, and it saves electricity!
Bill, you can invite Dakota Power Community Wind to your property here:
http://dpcwind.com/contact/
I’m still waiting for the ones that sense when you are about to turn on the light switch, and then the wind turbines start turning just in time….
Porter, I don’t think we need to demonize Troy and the country club to make the point here. Are any of the Lincoln County wind opponents the country club crowd?
Speaking of that quarry, do they give tours down into the pit? Could they allow rock-climbing tours on the weekends? That might draw more tourists than Badlands Pawn.
CH,
I’m all in for wind power and think the set-back on noise should be such the sound doesn’t exceed cars driving by which would make for a small set-back.
Regarding the quarry, I’d love a tour but I hear they have the most strenuous restrictions with regard to driving, standing, etc. of any business I’ve ever heard. Pretty sure rock climbing won’t be happening.
I don’t love the smell of Morrells, but I do like and appreciate Troy’s sentiment. Everyone wants to have the benefits without any of the side effects, and wind power is a whole lot more benefit than side effect.
Would I want one in my back yard? Probably not because it would ruin my ability to fly a kite and would force me to mow around it… but put it 200-300 yards away and I won’t complain. I’ve been directly underneath one of the turbines operating at full speed and I didn’t find any more annoying than common Interstate traffic noise.
Solar panels don’t make any noise so they are great too… but unfortunately South Dakota seems to have much more wind than sunshine, so we need to take the renewable energy where we can get it.
Sorry, Troy. I don’t mean to demonize you or your club. My metaphor was lost on the road to cleverness.
Craig,
Not to mention that solar power is over 2x as expensive as all other forms of electricity (doesn’t include the cost to store it which is necessary to make it more reliable (see below). It is only competitive when the panels provide power where there is no transmission lines to the use of the power. Currently there are no theoretical technologies (much less current technologies) to bridge the gap and that doesn’t even consider its unreliability (only creates power when the sun is shining).
In SD, we have roughly 105 days of sunshine and another 100 days partly sunny. Thus, we probably only have a little over 1,000 hours a year to generate power (sun has to be high in the sky so not all hours of sunshine create power). For wind, in SD, we have over 7,000 hours a year when the wind is not to high or too low. Wind’s big problem is while “reliable” over the course of a year in that it can be counted on for a certain amount of KWH’s but we don’t know when that will be and often during peak demand periods the wind is often blowing too high (over 25MPH) or too low (under 7 mph).
The issue with solar is sometimes the glare off of the panels, instead of the sound from the wind turbine. If you can place solar on top of other structures, great. If you can put it on land that you are not using for anything else, terrific. But if you start displacing greenspace then it is not as great.
mfi – FYI, around 700 times more birds die from flying into glass windows vs. flying into wind turbines. And that is the LEAST deadly thing in a bird’s life. Moving vehicles and cats are WAY higher. I know. Let’s fill in all the windows in every building in the world, entirely eliminate above ground or surface moving vehicles, and drown all cats. Then the birds will be safe.
Troy, it continues to amaze me (well not so much given the NATURE of “conservatives'” argumentation development processes – i.e., don’t THINK, just stick to the standard rhetoric) that no matter how many times this simple, clean, almost ancient energy storage solution is brought up, it is quickly forgotten.
Pumped storage hydroelectricity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity
Canada has this down to a science. Take a drive along the North Shore of Superior sometime. You’ll see plenty.
But you don’t even need a bog lake to do this. All you need is a hil and a pond area.
http://www.hydroworld.com/articles/print/volume-17/issue-3/Articles/wind-hydro-integration-pumped-storage-to-support-wind.html
Let’s stop the nonsense non-issue of “energy storage impossibilities” shall we? It’s an imaginary talking point bunch of BS.
Richard, I like this idea. Jim Abdnor promoted a big project as you speak near Gregory but it was deemed not cost effective (I don’t disagree with the last assessment done maybe 20 years ago). I wonder if the use of wind power to be the source of power to fill the storage basin might make it more cost effective and it solves the “reliability” issue of power being available when needed and not only when the wind is blowing. Another look might be appropriate with this new source of power.
Great process, pumped storage, especially in CO and the Black Hills where there’s an abundance of sunshine (CO has 300 days a year of sunshine) and the verticality to pull it off. CO also has lots of tunnels and pumps in the mountains that already move water. (Much of Denver’s water comes from over 200 miles away and is pumped up a mountain from lakes on the other side and flows down when it can) I can see why it’s called the highest potential energy storage.
Different methods of energy storage today will vary according to how quickly they can deliver energy back to the end-user. For instance, supercapacitors will give you a quick burst of energy, and pumped storage is better at spreading that energy out over a much longer time. We will need a combination of different methods.
The bigger problem is reducing losses that occur during the initial storage and final delivery of stored energy. That’s why we tend to use more natural gas today to make up the difference.