Monheganers can now contemplate the sort of sound that would accompany an on-island windmill, should one be built on your fair isle. Just listen to a podcast of an hourlong unedited recording of Fox Islands Windmills’ sound on Vinalhaven. Recorded midnight January 1st 2010, when sound meter registered 49-49 dBa. Recorded on porch of a house one half mile from closest windmill. Note the endless warbling “jet-engine” howl. Background “hiss” is wind in nearby tree branches. As reference, note wind chimes at 13 minutes and 30 seconds. For more info about the recording and related issues, go to Fox Island Wind Neighbors website.
From the category archives:
Monhegan Waters
Monhegan sand
At a Maine Wind forum May 20, 2010 at the Rockport Opera House, locations as varied as Ragged Mountain, Vinalhaven, Monhegan and waters 20 to 50 miles offshore were discussed. The key speaker University of Maine’s Habib Dagher, PhD, leader of the DeepCwind Consortium said that the conflicts over the siting and effects of land-based and nearshore windfarming on health, the pursuit of happiness and the natural environment are serious and insoluble sources of social conflict.
Instead, Dagher told his audience, deepwater floating windstations 20 to 50 miles offshore will be much more powerful and reliable, and won’t harass their own consumers & wildlife with flicker, noise and infrasound. The DeepCwind Consortium has received tens of million of dollars to lead the nation in deepwater offshore windpower R&D. Listen to podcasts of he and other speakers and audience participants below.
Other topics at the forum: a plan for a windfarm on the Camden Hills’ Ragged Mountain, Island Institute on midwifing community wind on Vinalhaven and on its efforts to raise enthusiasm for onland windmills on Monhegan, Swans Island and Frenchboro,Des Fitzgerald on his novel deepwater windturbine device and more. A lively Q&A session, too!
Click Here for Part One of the forum (1 hr) Introduction , Senator Chris Rector; Richard Podolsky environmental consultant; Susan Pude, Island Institute/Maine Community Wind
Click Here for Part 2 of the Forum: (45 minutes) Dr Dagher’s presentation on Monhegan and deepwater offshore windpower
Click Here For Part Three of the Forum ( 50 minutes) Des Fitzgerald, Ragged Mountain proposal; Question & Answer session. Scott Dickerson of MCHT -speaking on his own behalf (1 minute) was not pleased by the Ragged Mtn windfarm plan; why not, he asked send the investment and talent toward over-the-horizon offshore windpower.
Several takes on the conclusion of LD 1810, An Act to Implement the Recommendations of the Governor’s Ocean Energy Task Force
What all sources agree on is that the state is leapfrogging over state waters to much windier sites ten miles and more offshore for utility size windfarming. It is also noted that the state will not issue a solicitation for windfarms in state waters - other than limited R&D in the three R&D sites – including off Monhegan. Malleable as all laws ultimately may be, everything could change, but right now Dr Dagher and the University of Maine-driven DeepCwind Consortium are in the ascendancy and their plan calls for going over the horizon. Reached April 13th, Willard Harris, director of the submerged lands division of the Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands, confirmed no state waters utility or community scale ocean wind farm applications are anticipated or even likely, beyond the R&Ds.
The bill in its final form is ’Public Law 615′. html or word or pdf file It is a mishmash of changes to a variety of state statutes. Listen to mp3 recordings of the 3/11/10 public hearing on LD 1810_and its three worksessions. Includes the March 6th ocean windfarm seminar at 2010 Maine Fishermens Forum.
Maine Lobstermen’s Association April 2010 newsletter has two oceanwindmill articles
Offshore Wind Wire writer Peter Brennan: ”Maine Legislation amended to focus on deepwater wind”
Penobscot Bay Blog on “Wind Liberation “
LD1810, the Maine Legislature’s bill LD 1811,to authorize offshore wind leasing seems to be coming apart interestingly. Instead of filling state waters with windmills – a plan that enraged Maine’s fisheries, a new plan has emerged. By Tuesday night we’ll know if it has been adopted.
It would be something like this:
1. State Waters: Rather than follow “old Europe” by clogging up our nearshore coastal waters with windfarms, Maine will preserve her inshore waters for existing users. No windmills in state waters except for those R&Ds off Monhegan. Tidal and wave based power extraction may still be allowed – on small scales? Tidal won’t work easily in deep water.
2. Federal waters. Leapfrogging windpower extraction straight to floating windmills ten miles out and more. Skipping the shallow waters entirely.
3. Given that offshore electricity has to get to an on-land power grid, the plan is to run that issue of powerlines coming ashore past all the affected communities – municipalities fishing, tourism, aesthetes, etc, then come back in 2012 with recommendations In the interim, coastal towns and water dependent interests sprout protective ordinances or regulations.
Dr. Habib Dagher, director of the University of Maine’s offshore wind program, told the legislators at the worksession last thursday that floating offshore wind extraction is the answer.
“Rather then build fixed base units in shallow waters, which take a lot of equipment to build (it’s like like building a boat in the middle of the ocean and affixing it to the bottom of the ocean, thats what the Europeans are doing), we want to build like Bath Ironworks does: build it in a drydock. Float the drydock and tow the whole thing out to deep water.”
“In terms of Maine’s timeline: our goal is build our first demonstration floating turbine, a third-scale turbine about 120 feet above the water – next year and place it in the water the year after in the Monhegan site.” Following that, and shaking the bugs out of it, in 2013 we would build the first 4 or 5 megawatt unit, and place that in the water. Following that in 2014 and 2015, build our first “stepping stone” farm – a 25 megawatt farm. The next phase: development of the large scale 500 to 1,000 megawatt farm. We have at least one developer interested to do that and have it operational in 2020.”
The Maine Lobstermen’s Association’s Patrice McCarron responded to Dr Dagher:
“We wholeheartedly support this offshore development. Obviously it passes by the majority of where my stakeholders make their living. So that’s a no-brainer. When I look at the language here, though; because the bill is so comprehensive, and because its laying out the regulatory process to establish this in state waters – which I fully understand can happen anyway, and probably is a blessing in disguise – it scares me.”
“What’s missing for me after taking in all this comment, is the legislative findings of the bill which begin on page 14 and page 15; the sections A-1, 2, 3 and 4. It doesn’t clearly state that this is the state’s goal: to pass over this existing technology in state waters, and really focus where the wind resources are greatest. Those are strictly legislative findings, but for me it really sets the tone for the values and the goals of the state, and I’d like to look at potentially strengthening that and clarifying what the true intention of this is.”
By tomorrow night, we’ll know if Dagher’s Point hits the target: no windfarms within ten miles of shore or inhabited islands, to protect existing nearshore users, except for Monhegan which, Christlike, would allow its ineffable beauty to be scourged and, yea, sacrificed, for the greater good of of the rest of marine Maine.
Then again, there’s a little lawsuit pending, which may keep Monhegan’s views and sonic landscapes free of the lash.