A committee of the Vermont legislature has postponed action on proposed noise rules for wind turbines until late October.
The Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules heard three hours of testimony Thursday morning. As the noon hour approached, members discussed postponing a vote until its next meeting on July 6. But two members — Sen. Joe Benning (R-Caledonia) and Rep. Linda Myers (R-Essex Junction) —will be taking long vacations this summer, and they requested postponement until the full committee can meet again. That’s not until October 12.
This was the second delay in the process. LCAR heard testimony at its previous meeting on June 8, but decided another hearing was needed to give the matter its due.
The current rules are temporary and were set to expire on July 1; they will now remain in effect until at least October 26 unless the committee reaches a decision before then.
Funny thing is, it’s clear from the tone of the discussion that a majority of LCAR members plan to vote against the rules, which would mean sending them back to the Public Service Board for a rewrite. That could have easily happened on July 6, if not for the delay request from Benning and Myers.
Who appear to be the only members in favor of the rules.
The PSB crafted the temporary rules as well as the proposed permanent rules due to a legislative mandate. The permanent rules would impose noise levels of 42 decibels in the daytime and 39 decibels at night, and would also impose a rule that large-scale turbines must be “set back” from nearby residences. That requirement is 10 times a turbine’s height; since modern turbines are as much as 500 feet high, the setback standard is nearly one mile in all directions. Wind advocates have called the rules a virtual death knell for large-scale wind energy in Vermont.
The hearing ended with something of a shock over the lengthy delay.
It had opened with another shock: The Public Service Board had sent a letter to LCAR earlier this week saying it would acquiesce to the elimination of the setback requirement if LCAR members wanted.
The letter was received just before the deadline for submitting documents to the committee, and had not been publicly announced beforehand. Hence, all the witnesses were unaware of the possible change until the hearing began.
It’s a bit of a head-scratcher, in terms of both timing and content. Why so late? And why, if the PSB rulemaking process was so deliberate, exhaustive and thorough, is the board so willing to dump half of its product on short notice?
PSB officials sought to draw a precise line between proposing to dump the setback rule and expressing a willingness to do so.
“We continue to think that the setback is a very useful and simple tool to address sound and we continue to think it should be in the rule,” said PSB member Margaret Cheney after the hearing. “Nonetheless, we also think that the sound standards, which are the other half, are also protective. So if LCAR chose to ask us to remove the setback requirement, we would be amenable.”
Earlier, Cheney had told the committee, “We believe the sound standards [alone] achieve the same goal.”
If that’s true, then why propose both standards? “Setback is a simple, understandable tool,” explained PSB utilities analyst Tom Knauer, adding that sound monitoring is a complicated technical process.
During the hearing, Cheney and PSB staff defended the proposed rules, setback and all, while several committee members posed sharp questions.
“The rules are supposed to be about sound,” noted Sen. Mark MacDonald (D-Orange), the committee chair. “This appears to have drifted into areas that have nothing to do with sound.”
“I disagree,” replied PSB attorney John Cotter. “The board took aesthetics into consideration, but you must differentiate between visual aesthetics and sound aesthetics. Sounds can have aesthetic auditory impacts.”
And Cheney insisted that “the setback standard is not related to the visual impact of turbines.”
Board officials also fought back against the idea that the rules would be an effective ban on ridgeline wind, indicating that developers could seek buy-in from every nearby resident or file for a waiver from the PSB.
That’s right — if a single person living near a proposed turbine objected to the development, it could not go forward.
Its hard to believe that such a standard would be seriously proposed for any other kind of development in Vermont, from a dollar store to a nuclear plant. It’s true that a developer could apply for a waiver, but gaining approval from the current PSB would appear to be a long shot. Developers don’t take risks like that.
It’s all likely to prove academic, since LCAR is almost certain to vote down the rules sometime after leaf-peeping season. At that point, the PSB would have to resume work on a new set of rules. Given the fact that the board and the Scott administration take a dim view of ridgeline wind and most legislators are in favor of renewable energy including wind, it’s going to be very tricky to find a set of rules acceptable to all parties.
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John Walters is still suffering from too much cake and coffee with Klein. Oh, that’s right, the cake came from Shaws and the “ethics” committee.
Still, too much Klein.
Ms. Smith is accurrate. The issue with this article is that it reads like a piece of reporting, when it actually is an opinion piece. Mr. Walters is entitled to his own biases, most definitely, but they should stay in his “Fair Game” column, where as a political columnist he can attack anyone and everyone, and let accurracy fall by the wayside.
If you read this article and compare the style to most of those in his Fair Game section, you will see stark differences. That is essentially the problem. The style has changed, but the biases remain.
Walters writes a political column called Fair Game, once a week. This article strays from his prior good reporting on this issue where he acted as a reporter, while in this one he’s returned to his blogger biased days that his editors promised me he would be restrained from doing. Repeating that there are no studies showing health effects does not make it true. What the wind industry relies on are cherry picked literature reviews paid for by industry and governments with an agenda to promote wind energy. Many good studies about the human response to wind turbines are available and in the record at the PSB in numerous dockets. It is universal that people living in close proximity or downwind depending on topography and terrain are experiencing “annoyance” (a medical term), sleep deprivation, headaches, ringing in the ears, nausea, vertigo, and other symptoms such as cardiac issues that arise from the continuous exposure to a full spectrum of noise generated by these open air noise sources. There is no mystery about what is happening, scientifically. The mystery is why it is so hard for people to have compassion and understanding for the people who are affected.
Chris S repeats his alternate history as though it will suddenly become accurate the second time around.
Section 248 is decades old and was NOT written (or re-written) for the special benefit of wind or solar developers. Since he now brings up VY, its worth noting that it too is regulated by the very same process. These projects are all exempt from Act 250 because they are regulated by a separate provision of the law. Why not say that every non-utility development is exempt from the provisions of section 248, which require, as Act 250 does not, that the project demonstrates that its completion is in the public good?
The argument about legislative control is equally inane. Governors, not legislatures, appoint the members of DPS and the PSB (Some appointments require senate confirmation). Jim Douglas was governor when Sheffield and Lowell got most of the needed permits, and he appointed all of the members of the PSB who made the ultimate decisions during the early months of the Shumlin administration. The Shumlin PSB consisted entirely of members appointed (or re-appointed) by Jim Douglas until 2013, when Shumlin appointed Margaret Cheney.
Finally, yes I was (and am) an anti-nuclear activist. As someone quite involved with the issue beginning before Peter Shumlin was elected to the legislature, I can assure Chris S that hes quite mistaken in stating: No one fought more against the nuclear plant than Windham County based Peter Shumlin (then a state senator not well known in the rest of the state). Actually, Peter Shumlin never opposed continuing operations at VY until 2012 and in his early senate terms actually impeded various efforts to shut it down earlier. He opposed extending the life of the plant AFTER 2012, first in his last terms as state senator, then as governor.
“Pretty lousy reporting” says Annette Smith, “This isn’t real journalism” opines VtPolicyAnalyst. Walters is a POLITICAL COLUMNIST, PEOPLE!!! It says so right under his photo! You can disagree with his opinion (yes, that’s what columnist’s have, opinions). He’s not simply reporting events, that’s what……. wait for it…… reporters do. He’s listening to people from all sides of an issue, then forming an opinion and writing that opinion, IN HIS POLITICAL COLUMN, where opinions are written. Is he biased? Of course, we all are. Annette Smith’s bias is that she ignores the fact that there aren’t any scientific studies that show physical harm to people from large-scale wind, but instead she relies on anecdotes and hearsay, and reports them as fact. Guess what? She’s entitled to her opinion, even though it’s based on those anecdotes and hearsay. So, the lesson here is, reporters report, columnists opine, and Annette Smith reports her opinion as fact.
What this issue really is about is whether Vermont will once again have strong and smart land use laws to protect people’s health and home values, as long embodied by Act 250 and the local zoning encouragement provisions of Act 200.
If the John Greenberg commenting is the same John Greenberg from Brattleboro area, long active in opposition to Entergy and its Windham County nuclear power plant, one would expect shared support for smart land use laws. People opposed the nuclear plant for some good reasons, including protection of health and home values. No one fought more against the nuclear plant than Windham County based Peter Shumlin (then a state senator not well known in the rest of the state). Many people who voted for Democrat Peter Shumlin in 2010 were shocked to realize that the same Shumlin who ran as an environmentalist did not actually believe in Act 200, Act 250, ridge line protection, open space protection, wildlife habitat protection, wetlands protection, etc. if it did not involve his own backyard.
By the time the Legislature convened last year to pass industrial energy siting reform, it was no surprise that Shumlin vetoed the first version (influenced by Republicans) that might have actually helped the many threatened homeowners & property taxpayers. Version that passed instead is the one that now puts LCAR in the driver’s seat to negate rules issued by Phil Scott. Perfect hedge by the Democrats, once again putting industrial energy ahead of taxpayer health & home values.
Shumlin even attacked the low-income, working class and elderly residents of Winooski and South Burlington regarding the F-35 fighter jet basing, noting that people who live in Chittenden County choose to live near an airport (as if he didn’t choose to live in Windham County near a preexisting nuclear plant).
Environmental justice solely for Shumlin’s property or Mr. Greenberg’s property is not environmental justice at all. It is unfortunately just classic NIMBYism.