Letter to the Editor Warns of Dangers of Proposed Wind Farm
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Wind Turbines [Photo by Jeff Kubina from Columbia, Maryland via WikiCommons]
Hi Kym,
I wanted to inform you and your readers about the proposed wind farm to be located on Bear River Ridge and Monument Ridge. Terra-Gen plans on installing up to 60 turbines that are 591 feet tall with non-recyclable carbon fiber blades nearly 3 times longer than the tallest building in Humboldt County. These monsters have only a 15 year life span and the amount of steel, concrete and rare earth that goes into these giants is astounding.
There will be 19 miles of underground fiber optics communications system and electrical collection system linking the turbines to each other and to a substation for distribution into the Gen-Tie line.
A 115 kiloVolt Generation tie-in line of approximately 32 miles would transport the energy generated by the wind towers and cross under the Eel River. The power generated does not benefit Humboldt County, it will be purchase by cities south of us. We are just the platform for industrial wind and all its negative impacts on our rural wilderness.
A permanent operations facility that includes related buildings and offices would be constructed on the west side of State Highway 101 at the Pepperwood/Avenue of the Giants exit. Three concrete batch plants will be created and 17 miles of new access roads will be built near pristine old growth Fir and Redwood forests, virgin forests that could soon be exposed to being easily accessed and harvested. Millions of tons of concrete will be made and poured into our backcountry. Our virgin forests will never be the same. This effects old growth Doug Fir forests and Redwood groves plus all the animals, birds, bats, bugs, reptiles and more.
Impacts are more than just to the listed aerial species, this massive industrial project is way out of scale for our needs. This affects forest and watershed restoration from Jordan Creek to Monument Ridge and east to ancient redwoods and the Eel River and beyond. Take a detour off the Pepperwood exit next time you head down the 101 and experience the pristine redwood groves and consider the impact of this massive project.
Industrial wind turbines are not a sustainable method of energy production. Locally produced, small-scale, non-corporate energy production is the way of the future. Despite decades of experience and substantial installations in Denmark, Germany, Canada and Spain, the giant turbines have not been shown to meaningfully reduce the use of natural gas, coal, and nuclear — let alone oil for transport and heating. Their ability to reduce carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to climate change and pollutants that cause acid rain and health problems is false.
There will be a meet and greet in Petrolia on May 14 at 5:30 at the Mattole Valley Community Center with Terra-Gen to voice concerns and become more informed.
A petition can be found at…
https://petitions.moveon.org/sign/humboldt-wind-farm
Best regards,
David Grant
Petrolia, CA
Join the discussion! For rules visit: https://kymkemp.com/commenting-rules
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I think the overall need to save the planet is more important than the “Not In My Backyard” sentiment.
How are wind farms going to help save the planet? And explain with factual, verifiable information only, please.
Large centralized power systems are not the answer. Destroying the area’s roads, creating a concrete factory, and putting up 600-foot wind turbines to send electricity hundreds of miles away from the generation site is not the answer.
Thank you for this letter Mr. Grant, and Kym for publishing it.
What an ill-informed rambling ninny. Brain addled by too much pot?
Do you have any specific responses to his points? Seems a bit early for a personal attack.
“Old growth” forests are only “old” in our eyes. We live for 80 years, the redwood lives for over 1,000 years. A few thousand years is a nano second in the earths eyes.
If we wipe ourselves out because we’re too incompetent to accept wind energy as a viable option to power our indulgences the earth won’t mind.
Hopefully the next multi celled organism that stands up and walks won’t get on a soapbox saying “not in my backyard”
Should we mine some coal instead?
How should we power our i-products? We’re removing dams left and right, where do you suggest we get our power? Nuclear?
if we wipe ourselves out what happens to the nuclear reactors. core melt down that’s what happens. multiple that by 454 = dead planet.
We haven’t taken down a single dam.
~is this right? Why am i surprised?
I think the devildoers plan on the age of the dams – they’ll just self destruct – like our economy. Collapse from within.
For starters, his references to the project leading to further old-growth logging and “millions of tons of concrete” being poured in “our” backcountry are nonsense. The pristine old growth stands are protected within Humboldt Redwood State Park, which includes second-growth buffers. The project is within established TPZ lands. The reference to TPZ lands as “our” backcountry, which has in reality been in timber production for decades, is dripping with the entitlement mentality so typical of groovy Mattole people who pretend to be guardians of the environment while downplaying the impacts of their remote pot grows..
[Edit: That counts as an insult. I’ll put you back on moderation if you insult again.]
Really 591′ tall … that’s huge!?!?
Pot cures everything but makes you look sick.your narco dollars applied to research.
Seems that a lot of people are always against any type of forward progress in this county. Where will all the jobs come from if we don’t establish any kind of legal industry in this region?
I’m sure that someone was against the internal combustion automobile. And there are people who are against them now. I’m sure that there were objectors to dams but that seemed a solution for clean energy at the time and still is. Anything that makes people’s lives easier and safer will be exploited relentlessly until the negatives become obvious. Wouldn’t it be nice to have enough understanding before bad policies are entrenched?
While I take your point regarding the personal attack, this is so poorly informed, and has so many errors in fact, I think it does nothing to advance the argument.
That said I have respect for Mr. Grant as he said took a stand and signed his name. I object to having these things put on that ridge, and encourage Mr. Grant to consider another pass at this with some adjustments in order to convince more people.
I don’t want to look at them, and I hate the noise they generate, if you are within some hundreds of yards. However they work, and are currently adding (at 5pm) 11% of the total electricity being produced in the state. The California ISO website has real time data on where our power is coming from (worth a look).
Our community has the right, and should stand up and object if we don’t want them, but I believe this letter, however well intentioned, does not help that effort.
Point by point would take longer than I am willing to invest, but for an example: “These monsters have only a 15 year life span”
That is nonsense. Complex machinery, whether a coal burning power plant, natural gas plant etc. all require periodic repair/inspection/replacement of major mechanical assemblies. there are many 75 year old power plants in service, that get rebuilt every decade or so. This is no different.
My message to Mr. Grant is please gather some provable facts and leave the emotional grasping out. Consider throwing your support instead to the 30+ mile offshore wind gen efforts in process that are far from birds and people, and the glorious view-sheds we all value so much.
Offering our politicians acceptable alternatives can often go much farther than not-in-my-backyard.
Wow, mind blown. I mean I knew they caused cancer but I didn’t know they were bad for the environment.
“They say that noises emitting from turbines lead to sleep deprivation that can cause cancer and heart disease, along with a number of other illnesses.”
Who is They? I guess living in any urban area causes cancer. sounds like high paid layers paid some scientist to come up with this BS.
In better days we’d show up with scythes and pitchforks.
Seriously, how much horse sh!t is enough?
“Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.”
Here’s 5 wind turbine failures :
https://youtu.be/MVHzfUWul2Y
Wow.. watch this link…
That video was awesome! Thanks.
Oooh, scary video. No go look up plane crashes, car crashes, dam failures, bridge failures. I’m not saying that I’m for or against this particular project, just don’t fling scare tactics at people. If it’s man made it can fail. Risk/benefit analysis is the intelligent way to decide.
I didn’t find the video scary. I find great enjoyment in engineering failures.
The bird getting clobbered sucked though. I knew a biologist who used to do dead bird counts at a wind farm. She said there were so many bird kills she couldn’t, in good conscience, do the job and quit.
less than 5% of the original forests of older redwoods remain. even if this is not old growth, and some of the parks are not, leave them alone! honor the intention of the parks. nothing justifies messing up the forests. especially don’t ruin the few remaining trees just to benefit the population centers to our south. the cost out weighs the benefit.
no concrete, no more roads, just no.
how many times do we have to tell you ????? LEAVE THE REDWOODS ALONE.
I would like to know who owns the properties these will sit on. If they are to go on the GAPs land, I would maybe want to take a closer look at the project in terms of why they are pushing this as it relates to their agenda. I have never understood how they could buy so much timberland in Mendo and Humboldt and afford the taxes, overhead, etc. with the level of logging that is done. Something’s fishy.
Electricity cannot be stored and it must be used as it is produced. Think about how that relates to the use of different methods of production and the state growth demand to help wrap your head around pros and cons of a project like this.
The only real threat to the environment in my opinion are the birds that will be lost. The rest just sounds like whining and paranoia to me. I would vote no, just to save the birds. I agree they should be offshore.
Now if they could equip the mills with some kind of sensor and device that would lower the blades low enough to chop up the possums when they come through, I might be swayed.
Put em up! Let em spin and harvest power from the wind up there.
Our cars kill more wildlife than these ever would yet we continue to drive em. We either develop energy sources that replace combustion and learn to live with them or go extinct ourselves along with a lot of life as we know it.
An eagle here, an owl there, who gives a rats rump? Me,and now, is all that matters, right?
Whatever happened to high altitude kite generation? That was the shit. This ground-based buffered wind generation is okay as far as ERoEI goes, but we gotta think big and fast if we’re going to both avoid falling off the energy cliff AND keep the biosphere from dying.
Also, while Mr. Grant makes a few valid points in his OpEd, it’s mashed together with magical thinking and speculation. If he hasn’t read it already, I would suggest reading:
Richard Heinberg: The Party’s Over – oil, war and the fate of industrial societies. Pub by Clairview 2003
And anything related to ERoEI, a search will turn up lots of good material. When you’re trying to convince people, speaking calmly and clearly with facts usually works better than getting emotional and talking about feelings.
Good luck, and keep up the good work.
~whatever happened to common sense?
Anyone who thinks we need more gubbernut misfits’s fingers in the pie, is off the rail and running with one wheel in the sand.
I’ll say this again – why Humboldt? Why not the Sonoma Coast? Where these three imposters, McGuire, Wood and Huff-man, are from.
Maybe because we were dumb enough to let the first and dirtiest nuke plant in America be placed on Humboldt Bay. Just a go-spark and all life within range will no longer be breathing.
Maybe because it’s okay that THE County can’t produce an Annual Financial Report – AND, the fiscal year ended last June 30!
Maybe because the Supes. handed over more than 1,000 employee records to the HUMAN RESOURCE (you and me) DEPT., and the auditor-controller is barred from access.
Maybe because the gov’t goons put words on paper taking rights, transforming them into privileges$$$ (“Please Mastah”), charges a tax for it, and keeps it in check via threat and coercion.
Shut It Down Now! Former Humboldt PG&E IBEW 1245 Nuclear Plant Technician Bob Rowen On Nuclear Power https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d4TisLh6UM&t=23s 45 mins. January 2015
https://stopthesethings.com/2018/03/30/mass-blade-fail-means-early-retirement-for-hundreds-of-danish-wind-turbines/
There’s nothing new under the sun. These things are Known failures, financially and physically. We didn’t need nuclear, and the dams are coming down.
Decommission the nuke plant.
Wind Farms – ZERO!
I’m surprised that emotions came through with this letter. I am just trying to let Humboldt County residents know what we are up against. Wind energy is not free and it takes so many resources to create these giants and keep them running.
I grew up in a small town with orchards, farms and wilderness all around. Now when I visit, those orchards are gone, the farms are filled with neighborhoods, shopping centers and parking lots. The hills where we played as kids are now filled with McMansions and all this happened in less than 20 years.
I’ve lived in Petrolia for 23 years and it is still as it was when we moved there, besides some tall fences and greenhouses that didn’t exist before. In fact Humboldt County hasn’t changed that much. We still have ancient Fir and Redwood forests, the last on the planet. They used to stretch all the way down to the Bay Area. Eureka was once Redwood forests. Once we start industrializing this area that’s it, there is no turning back. Industry will sprawl, forests will be cut, pavement will be laid.
We need to preserve the wild lands that still exist, there is no where else on Earth with this type of ecosystem. It’s what drew me and my family here, it’s what drew so many of our Humboldt residents.
What intrigued me most about Petrolia when we first moved there in 1996 was how many people live off the grid. Many people live completely from power generated from solar. In the winter when the sun doesn’t shine creeks rise and small scale hydro creates so much power that people have to leave lights on so the battery banks don’t over charge.
The answer to our energy needs is in our own grasp. If every house had solar panels we could be making plenty of power. Small scale wind turbines through out the county could generate power at night as well as small scale hydro and bio mass plants. We don’t need to go big. We all need to contribute. It’s the only way. We can’t depend on the big companies to do it for us. It’s about time we as a community take responsibility and keep industry out of our rural lands. I want Humboldt to remain a special place, where the trees grow to be 350 feet tall. Once we industrialize this area it won’t be long, it will turn into another Santa Rosa. Yes I feel emotional, I love this area and I don’t want it to change. I would like more areas to be protected. It is our responsibility. It’s the only planet we have, we need to preserve the wild lands that still remain.
uh…… That balloon of ecobabble hot air didn’t help your case. You self-righteous back-to-the-landers are good at overlooking the fact that all the infrastructure that you still rely on to maintain your eco-groovy lifestyles was built as a result of this area having local industry that supplied out-of-area needs.
The wind farm won’t be located in Petrolia and its support facilities will be near Highway 101.
Carbon appears to cook us slowly and pressure waves and noise from wind turbines drive us insane. Better we should keep looking to find more elegant human scale solutions for our appetite for energy. https://stopthesethings.com/2019/05/07/far-out-german-study-finds-pulsing-wind-farm-infrasound-20-kilometres-from-turbines/
Researchers Explore Technology for Peer-to-Peer ‘Free Trade’ in Excess Energy
https://bit.ly/2V2eobE April 30, 2019
As Murray Rothbard wrote in Man, Economy, and State:
Regulation of public utilities or of any other industry discourages investment in these industries, thereby depriving consumers of the best satisfaction of their wants. For it distorts the resource allocations of the free market. Prices set below the free market create an artificial shortage of the utility service; prices set above those determined by the free market impose restrictions and a monopoly price on the consumers. Guaranteed rates of return exempt the utility from the free play of market forces and impose burdens on the consumers by distorting market allocations.
Wind power provides over 1/3 of Germany’s electricity ..for starters.
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/germany-faces-a-gigawatt-scale-loss-of-onshore-wind-power#gs.9xyvfa
Wind power provided 45% of Denmarks electricity in 2018.
Which is not surprising in the very small, very flat, sea bordering nation that historically found wind mills so useful that they became a national symbol. But even they have days of non production and they have had a natural gas supply for decades. The sale of natural gas to other countries has been an source of income for the state. Recently they have increased its use. There seems to be a limit of the number of windmills even the Danes will tolerate near their homes plus a breakthough in power storage is needed. Transmission is a big deal for the US . The winds are a whole lot farther from population centers than in tiny Denmark.
You mention Spain?
On windy days, wind power generation has surpassed all other electricity sources in Spain; On 21 November 2015 at 4:50 am, 70.4% of the electricity consumed on the Spanish Peninsula was covered with wind power energy.[
~i’d be more interested in: The World’s First Wave Farm Goes Live in Portugal
https://inhabitat.com/portugal-wavepower-plant-goes-live/