Monitoring turbine noise levels complicated

First of all, I want to say that Cape Vincent's Town Supervisor Tom Rienbeck is doing the right thing. I never thought I would ever say that, but I saw firsthand what he is trying to do for the town. He has appointed a committee of local residents to hammer out a wind-turbine zoning law. They are working from a draft document written by the town's law firm.

Personally, I think there's a lot of work that needs to be done to make it acceptable to the majority of residents. I trust these people will do their civic duty. I thought the first meeting went very well. There certainly were points of contention, especially concerning setbacks and noise pollution. But the meeting didn't break down into endless bickering. Thanks and congratulations to everyone.

Since the general public could not speak at this meeting, I would like to express my thoughts about this issue. The committee agreed to visit the Maple Ridge Wind Farm in Lewis County. Their plan is to go in the morning. First, they should call someone to verify wind is blowing sufficient to rotate the turbines. Some estimates suggest the wind only blows strong enough 30 percent of the time to rotate the turbines.

I visited the site last year during the day and the turbines were not rotating. In fact, the turbines were using electricity. It is a common practice for the wind company to start up each turbine to determine if there is sufficient wind to sustain the rotation.

Secondly, the purpose of this trip is to witness firsthand the noise produced by these windmills. This trip may be interesting, but it should not be interpreted as the last word on wind turbine noise. There are so many factors that dictate the level of noise these windmills produce: wind direction, wind velocity, relative humidity, topography, etc. And, keep in mind, you will not be trying to sleep at this hour of the day. Typically, the hours when we are sleeping are very quiet and peaceful.

There was a fair amount of talk about compliance and violation of noise levels. Please think about the practicality of measuring noise levels. It's not simply a matter of taking some kind of meter to someone's house and measuring the sound. It's much more complicated than that. A meaningful setback from residences makes a lot more sense.

Tom Gormel

Cape Vincent