Residents talk of how their lives have been destroyed by wind turbine noise
Cheryl Lindgren was excited when the three wind turbines down the road began turning in November, but within days her excitement turned to disbelief. The sound at her house, a half-mile or so away, wasn’t what she had expected. As she sat reading in her quiet living room, she could detect a repetitive “whump, whump” coming from outside.
“I can feel this sound,” she recalled thinking. “It’s going right through me. I thought, ‘Is this what’s it’s going to be like for the rest of my life?’”
Dedicated two months ago with great fanfare, the Fox Islands Wind Project is producing plenty of power, but also, a sense of shock among some neighbors. They say the noise, which varies with wind speed and direction, ranges from mildly annoying to so intrusive that it disturbs their sleep. And they say they lament losing the subtle silence they cherish living in the middle of Penobscot Bay — the muffled crash of surf on the ledges and the whisper of falling snow.
The folks living around North Haven Road aren’t anti-wind activists. Lindgren and her husband, Art, supported the project as members of the local electric co-op.
But now the Lindgrens are discovering what residents in other communities, including Mars Hill and Freedom, have learned: When large wind turbines are erected, some people living near them will find their lives disrupted.
That wasn’t supposed to happen here. Co-op members on Vinalhaven and in neighboring North Haven endorsed the $15 million project as a way to hold down high electric rates and maintain a sustainable community. The developer, backed by the Rockland-based Island Institute, saw it as a model for other offshore towns.
In the wake of the complaints, the developer is taking extraordinary steps to try to lessen the impact. Several modest fixes are under way, and bigger ones are being considered, including some that could sacrifice energy output.
But the Vinalhaven experience also is being seen as a cautionary tale. Upon invitation, Art Lindgren and other neighbors have spoken at meetings in mainland towns where new wind farms are being proposed.
Meanwhile, wind power opponents are attempting to change the state noise standards by which projects are permitted. All this may complicate Maine’s efforts to use its renewable resources to become more energy independent and create an industry around wind power.
IN NO-MAN’S LAND
The Vinalhaven project consists of three 1.5-megawatt turbines. They are a massive presence on a high point of land at the island’s northwest corner, a 10-minute drive from the ferry terminal. Each unit stands 388-feet high, from ground to blade tip.
The ribbon-cutting in November drew more than 400 people and attracted national media attention. Schoolchildren passed out pinwheels. Visiting dignitaries applauded New England’s largest coastal wind project.
The 15 or so property owners within a half-mile of the turbines watched with special interest.
To get state approval for a wind farm, developers must keep sound levels offsite below 45 decibels, less than the background noise in an average household. Fox Islands Wind purchased a home and two vacant properties that were adjacent to the towers. A fourth owner turned down a buyout offer, seeking more money.
But the Lindgrens and others suddenly found themselves in no-man’s land: Their homes are technically outside the noise zone, but their ears say otherwise.
The Lindgrens built their home 10 years ago next to Seal Cove. They have goats and ducks and heat with wood. After much travel and a career in software development, the couple looked forward to a peaceful retirement. Instead, they now spend much of their time measuring sound levels, comparing notes with neighbors and learning the details of wind power.
Cheryl Lindgren values quiet. On a recent stormy evening, she recounted when she first came here and stood at the shoreline in the snow.
“All I could hear was the sound of snowflakes falling on my jacket,” she said. “That’s not going to happen again.”
‘UNSETTLING AND UNPLEASANT’
On this evening, the Lindgrens were having cake and coffee with three other neighbors who are troubled by turbine noise. They’ve already developed a vocabulary to describe the shifting sounds.
One sound is like sneakers going around in a dryer. Another mimics an industrial motor. There’s a ripping and pulsing of blades cutting through the air, and the rotational “whump, whump, whump” sound.
Another common sound, which was audible on this evening from the Lindgrens’ front porch, resembles a jet plane that’s preparing to land, but never does. That sound was produced by two turbines spinning in a moderate northeast blow that followed the snowstorm. The third turbine was offline for repairs.
“That’s fairly standard,” Cheryl Lindgren said. “And that’s just with two turbines. Factor in the third and it’s unsettling and unpleasant.”
For Ethan Hall, the sound is more than unpleasant.
Hall is a young carpenter who’s building a small homestead on a height of land past the Lindgrens, roughly 3,000 feet from the nearest turbine. The noise was so annoying on some nights, Hall said, that he couldn’t sleep in the passive-solar, straw-bale structure. Now he’s house-sitting in town.
“I find it maddening,” he said. “It’s a rhythmic, pulsing sound that’s impossible to ignore.”
Art Farnham is trying to ignore the noise, although he can clearly hear it inside his mobile home. A lobsterman who lives 1,300 feet from a turbine, Farnham turned down an offer to buy his 6-acre property. He continues working on a new home and shop that will have a turbine almost in its backyard.
“I think they should shut them down,” he said. “We were here before they were.”
Between Hall and the Lindgrens is the home of David and Sally Wylie. They built in the once-quiet cove, and like their neighbors, did much of the work themselves.
“This has been our dream, our life,” Sally Wylie said from their winter home in Rockland.
Set into the snow on the Wylies’ lawn is a tripod and meter that Fox Islands Wind is using to measure sound levels. But that’s little comfort to Sally Wylie, who believes the computer modeling used to approve the project is wrong. The only solution now, she said, is to turn down the turbines to a point that they are quieter, but still produce an acceptable amount of power.
“It really boils down to what the community is going to accept,” she said.