WIND FARMS

Recently I took a drive south and east of our place up here in the North Country. I took some back roads that brought me over towards Brainardsville, Ellenburg and Chateaugay. Out that way there’s quite an amazing sight that started and continues to fuel a kind of love-hate affair with environmentalists and conservationists. On ridge after windy ridge in that area you will see spinning wind turbines and wind turbines under construction. There are a couple of large companies erecting these modern marvels and while some folks think they’re pretty neat others feel that they’re ugly and an abomination on the land.

Wind turbines are giant three bladed windmills that catch even light winds and turn them into electric power. I don’t pretend to know the engineering of these things but I’m told that when the blades spin a turbine turns that creates electricity which is sent to some sort of storage system, then it goes on to a big transfer grid where the energy is sent into the national power grid. Once there it is purchased by various utility companies. From the utility company the power is sent to homes and businesses where it does everything from turning the machinery of factories to making popcorn in your microwave. And, of course, the end user pays a marked up price for that electric power.

Windmills are nothing new. We all remember the pictures of the windmills in Holland spinning lazily as they created power to run drainage pumps and other things like flour mills. But the towers up here in the North Country are not quaint little structures dotting the landscape. These machines are huge, eighty to a hundred and twenty foot high needle like pylons with aerodynamically designed blades, all white and shiny in the sunlight. And there are hundreds of them clustered along ridges for miles on end. It is an impressive and somewhat eerie sight. As a person who grew up marking the change of seasons by what was happening on the former farms and woodlands where the new windmills have taken over, it is somewhat unsettling and distracting. They command the landscape and, to my mind, detract from its natural beauty.

Are the wind turbines worth the toll they take on the land? Those environmentalists who are strongly in favor of alternative forms of energy say yes. Those conservationists who live near the things are a bit less positive about them. The landowners who have leased and sold land to the operating companies feel that the deal is pretty sweet. The locals who get no cheaper energy from the wind farms in their townships aren’t so sure about that. The townships that get tax money and impact fees from the big companies say that the impact on their budgets is great and property taxes could, someday, be lower for homeowners. (Although they seem to find ways to spend the dough before those tax cuts are enacted) There’s a lot of controversy and for every pro there seems to be a con.

When the wind farms were first proposed a big political and environmental debate took place. Signs sprouted up everywhere; “NO WIND TURBINES!” “WIND TURBINES YES!”. A lot of those signs are still around but in the townships of Belmont, Clinton, Altona and several others the battle is over. Some other areas are still seeing fighting about the issue but economics will prevail and there will be more towers soon. I saw one article predicting three thousand turbines along the northern edge of New York State.

Geography and meteorology are the reasons that there will be so many wind farms in this area. The land rises fairly abruptly from the St. Lawrence River Valley in a continuous ridge from Watertown to Gouverneur to Potsdam to Malone to the point where the ridge is intersected by the Champlain Valley. Almost constant winds driven by clashing weather systems sweep up along and over the ridges. If you’ve ever spent some time up in this area you know that most days, even those rare warm and balmy ones, are almost never still. The wind blows, and that’s a fact.

The wind farms are becoming a fact of life now. As you drive across the upper part of the state don’t be alarmed by the alien looking shapes that suddenly loom over the next hill. If they disturb your aesthetic sense of what nature should look like then know that you’re not alone. At that point turn South and head into the Adirondack Park area where the controlling agency down there still has the resolve to resist the turbines. Feast your eyes on the mountains and forests that are still relatively unspoiled. But if you want to see rolling, rugged farmlands you’ll have to find someplace where the wind doesn’t blow quite so much.

Have a fine day.