A few of us in a small town in Northern California have just finished presenting an appeal to the County Board of Supervisors concerning a decision made by the Planning Commission to allow the installation of a large wind turbine in an established riparian zone that is the home of several endangered species of birds, bats and other bird not on the endangered species list. In addition, this turbine was planned to be placed in relatively close proximity to a small town and school. The appeal did a small amount of good in that it resulted in the movement of the turbine by about 1300 feet, and added a requirement that the owner monitor and report the number of birds and bats that they find that have been killed by the turbines.
A few days after our defeat I decided to once again write to one of the County Supervisors concerning the issues associated with these turbines. Interestingly, I actually got a response and we carried on a bit of an email dialogue. I am putting this dialogue in this blog because I think it has some interesting, and possibly important, information concerning various aspects of the County decision making process.
ME:
I don't know if you have been following this link on wind power. news@wind-watch.org
I have been hesitant to send it to you guys because I am pretty sure that you all (the BOS and the Planning Commission - the "deciders" of Yolo County) will take it as just a bunch of NIMBY's complaining about negative changes in their neighborhood. I have subscribed to it so that I can follow the discussions as they come up. I find it pretty interesting reading. It consists of lots and lots and lots of scientific, engineering and medical studies. A few are positive about the prospects of wind, most are not (I am convinced that this is because there is almost nothing positive to say about them). It also contains hundreds (possibly thousands) of daily news articles from all around the world concerning local citizens who are actively opposing wind installations (including Zamora and Yolo County newspaper articles and reports from the BOD meetings) as well as hundreds of first person discussions from people who are now subjected to the installations. I notice that it takes about a day for a news article to appear in the Democrat before it shows up on this web site. There is such a groundswell of discontent and objection that you would think the governments would sit up and notice that maybe it isn't the desires of, on in the best interests of, the citizens. Obviously we are all being totally ignored - just as you guys are ignoring us. The message is clear - to heck with the public - there is GOLD in them thar hills. Nothing will stop the gold rush bubble until we have yet another inevitable financial disaster created by the wild and unreasonable speculation bought and paid for by the tax and rate payers. In this case, most of the speculation is from over seas firms, but it will have the same impact in the end.
You might find it interesting and thought provoking to take a look. I am impressed at the neutral approach that this web site has taken. They are just publishing things that are in newspapers and magazines around the world, and are reporting (and including) hundreds of scientific reports that should be the "smoking gun" stopping their installation, but of course it is not because of the vast amounts of gold involved.
I don't think you have to believe or not for this web site to be interesting - it just gives a flavor of opinion in various countries. A little like the "occupy" folks - you don't have to side with them, but it seems reasonable to pay attention to the message - which is exactly the same message that you can find in all sorts of places like this wind web site. There is a feeling that the 1% are running over all the rest of us, and nobody is going to stand in their way.
SUPERVISOR:
You can believe whatever you like. You somehow want to prove that wind power is bad and therefore it should be banned.
I happen to think that smoking is bad... but I am not in favor of banning the activity because adults can make their own decision about smoking or not. I feel the same way about tattoos, fast food, and riding a motor cycle without a helmet.
You have certain abilities to shape the use of the property of another person. That ability is limited by the law and the property rights of other land owners.
The question for me is not if wind power is good or bad. That is not the relevant decision point to me. ..... but seems to be a key point for you. The real question is does it interfere enough with the land owners around it. My general inclination is that it does not.
ME:
You presented some interesting points of view.
However, you totally misunderstand my point of view. My point of view has nothing to do with beliefs that something is "bad" or "good" - it has everything to do with finding the most effective solution. I admit, a couple of years ago I did deal with this issue from the point of view of a "belief" - and that belief was that wind turbines are a good solution to the energy problem and that they are a necessary evil (evil in the sense of having many negative environmental impacts for wildlife and the local communities). I based my opinion on a belief because I did not take the time or effort to find out whether my belief was correct or not, I was busy doing other things. However, as I studied this further I discovered that my belief was unfounded and incorrect - the facts of the matter are that the approach of installing large numbers of wind turbines is an ineffective, and very costly, approach that causes much damage to the environment, community and near-by neighbors. Not only that, but it is an approach that is not necessary to achieve the stated goals of getting our electrical power from clean, renewable energy sources. In fact, it gets in the way of implementing a better solution. As far as I have been able to determine, these are not "beliefs" - they are facts.
My basic approach to understanding this rather complex issue has three parts.
1) The first part is that I try to perform a cost-benefit type of evaluation. The question is whether or not the benefits are worth the costs. In answering this question, I have been considering the entire set of costs and benefits in terms of dollars, energy production, carbon dioxide reduction, environmental impacts, impacts upon communities, impacts upon quality of life and others. When I research these issues, it becomes clear that once the amount of power from wind reaches about 5% penetration they start to become much less effective, and at about 10% penetration they are predicted (by energy experts - not me) to provide no net energy or net reduction in CO2. That means that there are very few, if any, benefits and there are lots of costs. This is especially the case if the benefits are judged to be in comparison with other available options.
2)The second part is a consideration of whether or not there are better, less costly, solutions to the problem as required by the CEQA regulations and common sense. There is at least one such solution, which is small scale "roof top" PV solar. There is more than enough space to get all of our power from these roof top sources without ANY appreciable negative environment impact with regard to their installation and operation. They are much less expensive by all measures, and require much less (or no) government incentives to be highly effective and affordable. They result in a significant decrease in the cost of power to the consumer rather than a significant increase, and they can easily be paid for by the owner without any money being required from taxpayers or rate payers beyond low cost initial financing that can easily and affordable be paid off in just a few years. So from everything that I have been able to find out, there are MUCH less damaging alternatives that actually achieve the desired goals effectively and are much more affordable to the tax payers and rate payers than the wind turbine solutions. In addition to this, there is solid engineering evidence that a significant increase in the number of wind turbines beyond those that are currently installed bring with them a real risk of the total collapse of the power grid for extended periods of time (over a year).
3) The third part has to do with the "fairness" about who gets the benefits and who pays the costs. It turns out that the only ones that get a benefit are those who make money on the installation, hosting (landowners) and operation of the wind turbines. Since they are actually not effective at making clean, renewable energy there are no other benefits for anyone (possibly the County will get some tax dollars as a benefit). The costs are borne by the tax payers, the rate payers, the local community, neighbors (noise, view scape, lighting problems, etc), and natural environment (water, erosion, birds, bats, etc). To me, this is not a "fair" situation because many pay the costs, but do not share in the benefits in any discernible way.
As you can see, none of these approaches are based upon untestable or unknowable "beliefs" - they are all discoverable by analysis, testing, and observation. I have spent many, many hours searching the literature and talking to experts in the energy field to determine if my assessments are correct, or if I am somehow missing critical information. If I am missing information, or am using incorrect information, I am quite happy to change my position. However, so far that has not been the case. In every instance that I have delved deeply into the subjects, it turns out that the negative impacts are worse than I had originally assumed, and the positive benefits are less. It is not a case of beliefs, it is a case of scientific, engineering and economic facts. I try my best not do things, or take important positions, based upon unsubstantiated beliefs - I am afraid I am a died-in-the-wool believer in science and use that as my method of arriving at my opinions and decisions whenever possible.
There is nothing in this whole thing that is even remotely related to your examples of smoking, fast food or riding a motorcycle without a helmet. You are talking about personal risk taking behavior, the wind turbines are very different. I question the right of a person to take risks that cost society large amounts of money such as those that you listed, but fully understand that we cannot, and should not, prevent an individual from injuring themselves by engaging in risky behavior. However, building giant machines that have a large direct impact on others and the environment is a very different issue. I don't believe that just because a person can build something they should have the right to do so. There are the rights of both those who reap the benefits, and of those that pay the costs, to consider - not to mention the impacts upon the environment that need to be considered.
Your discussion of my rights to shape the use of the property of another person is pretty confusing. I wonder what the right might be based upon. My understanding is that the right to do so it based upon a community benefit from the activity that is believed to offset the personal costs to the one that is negatively impacted. The role of the planning commission (and the BOS) seems to be to ensure that the negative impacts are in accordance with the desires and benefits of the community. It is really a cost/benefit analysis from the point of view of the community, the neighbors and the environment, as well as the desires of the landowner. Yes, these rights are to be considered in terms of the law and property rights of the land owners - both of which are defined by the law makers in terms of a cost benefit type of evaluation. However, the rights don't come from "on high," they come from men trying to find a reasonable solution to the problems of property rights and impacts upon those who bear the negative impacts upon the activities. It is one of those "your rights end where my nose starts" kind of things.
Now to your last paragraph. As I have already indicated, the issue of "good" or "bad" has absolutely no importance or meaning to me. Questions such as "does it work?", "is it worth it?" and "is there a more effective and less damaging solution?" are ALL that I care about. I don't even know what you mean by "bad" and "good" in terms of wind turbines, solar arrays, or coal power plants for that matter. None of these are inherently good or bad, but some are "better" than others in terms of costs and benefits.
Your bottom line question really confuses me. You say that the real question is whether it interferes "enough." I wonder what the criteria for determining what is "enough" might be. It seems to depend upon who is making that decision. Is being driven from your home because of the neighbors wind turbines count as "enough?" Does destroying the beauty and serenity of the countryside count as "enough?" Is killing one, or ten, a thousand or ten thousand birds "enough?" It seems to me that there are two ways to determine what is "enough." One definition has to do with the specifics of laws, regulations and ordinances. The other has to do with answering the three questions that I posed at the beginning of this letter. Is it worth it? Is there a better solution? Is the apportionment of cost to benefits "fair?" There are other factors that need to be included, but I think this gives my general understanding of how the determination what is "enough" is made.
You said you have a general inclination that the negative impacts are not "too much" for something, but it isn't at all clear what that something might be. (I think your having a "general inclination" means that you really haven't researched the issues enough to have solid evidence.) Maybe my confusion is because you aren't thinking in terms of costs and benefits, or fairness, or utility - maybe you are of the opinion that landowners have the right to do whatever they want as long as they don't cause "too much" damage to their neighbors or the environment. I suppose there is a kind of logic to this approach - using this logic it really doesn't matter at all what the person wants to do with their land, it only matters that they want to do something. If that is the case, then the whole concept of a use permit gets kind of shaky. Who cares what the use is? By that logic, the regulations should specify the amount of damage and costs to others or the environment that is considered to be "acceptable." All projects would be considered equal, none would have special treatment because they are important. If this is the approach, then the regulations should be silent on anything to do with uses of land, they should only talk about acceptable (or unacceptable) damage or negative impacts. That approach would eliminate all considerations of community planning and other similar aspects of the planning function. It should not matter where the negative impacts are located, the only issue would be whether or not the cumulative negative impacts are "enough" to prevent the activity. Maybe this is a good approach, but it isn't the approach that is currently being followed by the County, the State or the Country.
I really want to thank you for your response. It has really helped me to better understand the criteria that you, and I assume the other BOS and Planning Commissioners, use in making judgement concerning whether or not an activity is considered to be acceptable to the County. It seems to be based upon how much damage will be done to others, and whether or not it violates an existing law (such as CEQA, which was pretty much ignored in this case).
SUPERVISOR:
Don't those landowners have the right to be wrong?
ME:
Not if they are wrong on my nickel.
NEXT MORNING, ME AGAIN:
First off, I want to thank you for taking the time and energy to carry on a bit of email dialogue with me on the topic. It is very unusual to get any response at all from politicians - normally everything just goes into a black hole never to be heard from again. I have found your comments to be very interesting and useful.
Concerning my rather flippant response to your question about whether or not the landowner can be allowed to fail. When I responded with "not if it is on my nickel" I was speaking figuratively. What I really was trying to express was the idea that I agree that they should be able to fail as long as all of the costs of the failure are paid entirely by them. This includes tax incentives, price supports, impacts to the community, impacts to neighbors, impacts to the environment - or impacts to any shared resources such as the utility grid or utility prices. Basically, as long as there are no negative impacts beyond what the landowner owns (including impacts following a sale where the landowner no longer owns that land), then as far as I am concerned they are free to fail or not without any interference. As soon as the impacts go beyond their fence line (including noise and visual impacts), then they no longer have such freedom. It might be that we (as a community) decide to let some things go by without interference, but that is a decision that we get to make, it is not their "right." It is my understand that part of the reason for a Planning Commission and a Planning function is to bundle some of these issues so that they don't have to be re-decided every single time. However, that doesn't mean that the community doesn't have the right to restrict any and all impacts that go beyond the fence line or that impact shared resources (such as water, soil, wildlife, noise, view, roads, streams, airspace, quality of life, etc).
One of my major frustrations with the process that you just went through with the wind turbine decision is that the State handed you (the County decision makers) a great tool to get the necessary information required to make an educated decision. This tool is in the form of CEQA. All that the County had to do was to invoke CEQA and the developer would have had to pay for the analyses and assessments necessary to identify the pros and cons, quantify the risks, and compare their chosen solution to the feasible alternatives, including the "no action" alternative. They would have had to identify and quantify the impacts and show how they were going to mitigate them, which would have then formed the basis of a contract between them and the County requiring them to implement the mitigating actions. It won't have cost the County anything to do this, and you would have gotten some pretty good information for this and future similar applications. Choosing to ignore this tool seems to be shortsighted to me. The reason that I have been doing the research and sending you guys the information that I have been sending is an attempt to provide you with a little bit of the information that you would have gotten from that study. (Performing these kinds of environmental impact studies is part of my business practices, and in doing this work for free I gave the County a gift worth tens of thousands of dollars.) Sure, it would have cost the developer a little bit (about 1% - 2%of the cost of the project), and it would have slowed the process a bit, but I believe that would have been a small price to pay for better information and more knowledge about the topics in specific relationship to the County, the community and the local environment. There was no reason to guess at the impacts, the costs or the appropriate mitigation. There will be many more applications for wind turbines to follow by the same developer but I am afraid that now there has been a precedent set concerning the imposition of CEQA regulations that will be very difficult to change in the future. The reason that the timing is so important to the developer is that a little bit of the incentive money goes away by the end of the year and the entire project is financially unsound without the the entire stimulus/incentive package - which should tell us a little bit about the financial viability of these systems. They certainly are operating on the bitter edge of financial viability if they are so dependent upon tax supported incentives.
