Mailbag: Wind Turbine Corner: Lynda writes:

The latest wind news came yesterday in a slightly confusing article out of Milwaukee about the passage of Magnolia’s wind ordinance. (it’s today’s post on the website) The good news is a spokesperson from the PSC said that the half a mile setback seemed “pretty safe” and “acceptable to us” -- this should help Union move forward with the ordinance. I haven’t been able to understand what the foot dragging is about--

The bad news is that the wind developer might try to force the PSC’s hand when it comes to Magnolia because it’s a 67 turbine project. Weirdly, if a project is 67 turbines and over, the PSC can take away local control and give permission for the project to be sited as the PSC wishes. At the moment they are using the Wisconsin draft model ordinance which has a 1000 foot setback and a 50 dB noise limit even though no one seems to be able to say where those numbers came from.

There is something really wrong with this kind of thinking and my hope is the law will change before too many towns go the way of Byron in Fond Du Lac. That whole area is destroyed. The PSC approved the project with the 1000 foot setback. The wind farm Gerry Myer (he testified at Union) lives in has over 80 turbines