Rich Porter in National Scheme to Discredit Wind -- Updated

[Note: This article has been corrected to clarify the author of the document in question].

This week, news sources implicated one Rich Porter as the author of a memo detailing a national anti-wind strategy that would team up wind opponents with national libertarian groups like the American Tradition Institute in an effort to discredit and stop the wind industry's growth.

The memo details a wide-ranging mix of astroturf (fake-grassroots) tactics to undermine the wind industry, and calls for funding from fossil fuel-funded organizations. Click here to read the memo.

From E&E's Greenwire (via Governor's Wind Coalition):

[A] 10-page strategy memo appearing to detail an expensive and ambitious campaign targeting the wind energy industry. The memo, circulated by the watchdog group the Checks and Balances Project, calls for opponents of wind power to engage in messaging and media outreach efforts that “appear as a ‘groundswell’ among grass roots.”

The memo also calls for the establishment of “dummy” businesses in communities considering hosting wind power projects to purchase 400-foot billboards opposing the idea.

Renaming wind power as “puff power” or “breeze energy” is also recommended.

The document, which was first referenced in an article yesterday in the Guardian, was drafted by Illinois attorney Rich Porter and edited by John Droz, a longtime opponent of industrial wind and a senior fellow at the American Tradition Institute.

Note & Retraction: Although Greenwire reported that attorney Rich Porter authored the document, Porter contacted the editor of this blog to explain that he was not the document's author.  A likely explanation is that the original author was actually the Richard Porter that is affiliated with a wind opposition group known as Illinois Wind Watch. We regret this error.

Anti-Wind Attorney Rich Porter Attempts "Legalized Extortion"

The drama continues as Lee County considers changes to its wind zoning ordinance, with the State's Attorney stating that anti-wind attorney Rich Porter is attempting "legalized extortion" and "coerced compromise" in his charge to virtually ban wind energy in the county. According to an article in Sauk Valley Media:

Lee County State’s Attorney Henry Dixon contends that an attorney representing objectors to a proposed wind ordinance is attempting “legalized extortion” – or maybe just “coerced compromise.”

In an April 18 letter to County Board Chairman Jim Seeberg, Dixon said Hamilton and Willow Creek townships had failed to properly submit their objections to a proposed wind energy ordinance.

If the objections are deemed valid, a supermajority of 75 percent of the 28-member board must approve the ordinance for passage. Otherwise, only a simple majority is needed.

Dixon’s letter said Rockford attorney Rick Porter, who has helped Hamilton Township with its objection, was trying “legalized extortion, and I don’t mean that in a bad or evil sense.”

He said Porter was using the objection process to get the board to amend the proposed ordinance to Hamilton’s liking.

“I suppose rather than ‘legalized extortion,’ I might more delicately use the term ‘coerced compromise,’” the state’s attorney wrote.

Dixon couldn’t be reached for comment Thursday.

The County Board is expected to vote on the proposed ordinance at its May 15 meeting.

Dixon’s letter recommended that Seeberg call for an up-or-down vote on the ordinance, which includes more regulations for wind farms than exist now.

The letter comes on the heels of a move by the County to disband an ad-hoc panel of the Board, which was charged with considering changes to the ordinance. From the article:

Earlier this week, a special committee designed to review the proposed ordinance, which was drafted by the Zoning Board of Appeals, disbanded after Dixon told members that the panel had not been “properly constituted.”’

In the letter to Seeberg, Dixon wrote that he didn’t know where the Shippert committee came from, referring to its chairwoman, Marilyn Shippert, R-Dixon.

He also said he was disappointed that no one on the committee asked him to attend to provide legal advice. That panel met a couple of times before he found out about it, he said.

He said that when he heard that Zoning Administrator Chris Henkel was “strongly urged” not to attend, “I realized not informing me of those meetings and not inviting me to attend was not accidental.”

Shippert said Thursday that she informed Henkel through his office that he was welcome to attend the meetings, but that he wouldn’t sit at the head table as he has at Zoning Board meetings.

As for Dixon, she acknowledged she hadn’t specifically asked the state’s attorney to attend, but said that wasn’t intentional.

His opinion on whether the objections were properly filed likely would stand, Shippert said.

“He’s the legal expert of the county,” she said. “We have to go by his word.”

Appraisers Discuss Turbines' Impact on Property Values in Whiteside Co

The zoning panel of the Whiteside Co Board heard testimony from two property appraisers this week, and not surprisingly, the appraiser for the developer argued that wind projects cause little to no permanent property value declines, while an anti-wind appraiser argued all sorts of horrible impacts are possible.

However, the appraiser hired by the developer was backed by a host of research supporting his position, while anti-wind appraiser Michael McCann (seemingly the only appraiser in Illinois willing to attest to this position) made his claims based on emotion and innuendo. According to a story from Sauk Valley Media:

Appraiser Michael Crowley has argued for years that wind farms don’t hurt nearby property values. He stuck to that position this week.

Crowley, a Spring Valley-based real estate appraiser, has been hired by wind energy companies for at least 5 years to testify before zoning commissions.

Wednesday, he spoke to the Whiteside County Planning and Zoning Commission, which is holding hearings on Mainstream Renewable Power’s plan for nine turbines in the southeastern part of the county.

He consulted with real estate appraisers from wind areas in Midwestern states, he said, and based on his analysis, the proposed turbines near Deer Grove would not “adversely affect property values of surrounding real estate.”

He acknowledged an “anticipatory decline” in property values after a project starts, but said that “tends to be alleviated” relatively soon after.

Shari Batten, who lives within a half-mile of the proposed turbines, asked Crowley if he was saying that her property value wouldn’t go down because of the turbines.

He stopped short of that.

“I can tell you that it hasn’t anywhere else,” he said, adding that other factors influence property values.

Another Illinois appraiser, Michael McCann, has gone to communities around the state to argue just the opposite – that wind turbines do cause nearby property values to drop.

He has suggested a 2-mile distance between homes and turbines – much farther than Whiteside County’s 1,400 feet, which is a little more than a quarter-mile.

“Impacts are most pronounced within the ‘footprint’ of such projects, and many ground-zero homes have been completely unmarketable ...,” he said in a report to the Adams County Board in 2010.

The Whiteside commission has made no decision on the Mainstream proposal, which also includes turbines in Lee and Bureau counties.

The panel will meet again May 2.

Anti-Wind Activists Again Call for Turbine Ban in Ford County

A group of anti-wind forces in Ford County is again calling on the Ford County Board to enact wind turbine siting regulations so strict they would drive development from the county, says an article in the Champaign News Gazette:

The Ford County Board has been confronted with yet another request from a resident concerned about wind farms. And again, the board offered no discussion on whether it would consider adopting stricter regulations.

In the past year, the board has repeatedly been asked — but has refused — to discuss possible revisions to the county's ordinance regulating wind farms. Until Monday's meeting, the requests have been made mainly by Cindy and Ann Ihrke, two candidates for the board in the March 20 primary election who are both members of Energize Illinois, an organization opposed to the wind-energy industry.[...]

But on Monday night, the person requesting greater protections was Tom Harrison. His home southeast of Paxton is about a quarter-mile from one of the 94 wind turbines built last fall as part of the Pioneer Trail Wind Farm.

To protect people living near future wind farms in Ford County, Harrison suggested the board increase the county's existing 1,000-foot setback between wind turbines and "non-participating" landowners' homes. Harrison said he has heard that turbines need to be at least "a half-mile or a mile" from a home to be considered a comfortable distance away.

Citing research, the Ihrkes have also asked the board to consider amending the ordinance to require a greater setback.

NextEra Settles Lawsuit Regarding DeKalb Co Project

From an article in the Daily Chronicle:

DeKalb County Board President Larry Anderson said the dismissal of a nearly 2-year-old lawsuit against the county and multiple county landowners over the creation of a wind farm was “an early Christmas gift.”

Citizens for Open Government – a group of local residents opposed to the wind turbines in the county – dismissed the lawsuit Friday after reaching a settlement with NextEra, the builders and operators of the wind farm and one of the many defendants.

Details of the settlement are unknown.

Anderson, R-Malta, has been involved with the wind farm – which includes 119 turbines and spans Afton, Clinton, Milan and Shabbona townships – since the board first approved it in June 2009. He said he was happy to see a resolution.

“It’s been in the works quite a while,” Anderson said of the legal battle. “It’s nice to get it out of the way and now we move on.”

John Farrell, head of the civil division for the DeKalb County State’s Attorney, said he is glad to see the case end and a favorable outcome. Though the county did not receive any money in a settlement, Farrell said the legal case has come at no cost to taxpayers as any outside consulting was paid for by NextEra.

Farrell said he has not had any contact with the plaintiffs and was not privy to the details of the settlement reached between them and NextEra. He said the important takeaway for the county is the validation of the process it used to go about creating the wind farm.

The lawsuit alleged that the county board overstepped its zoning authority when it authorized the special-use zoning permits for agricultural land. County officials said the project was allowed under a special-use clause that permits “essential service structures.”

“It was hard to really predict how this would play out,” Farrell said. “But these kind of cases do generally end up in settlements.”

Mel Hass, spokesman for Citizens for Open Government, said “the issue has been resolved,” but declined to comment further. Jim Nilles, also a member of the group, declined to comment and the group’s lawyer, Rick Porter, said “the matter has been resolved.”

Anti-Wind Activist's Claims Fall on Deaf Ears in Ford County

An anti-wind activist in eastern Illinois is asking why the Ford County Board isn't listening to her claims, despite the fact that the board dismissed much of her rambling testimony when she first addressed them last summer.

According to an article in the Champaign News-Gazette:

Ann Ihrke, a Ford County resident who plans to run for election to the county board next year, asked the board Monday night why it has refused to address concerns she raised this summer about wind farms.

Ihrke and other members of Energize Illinois, a Ford County-based group protesting the wind-energy industry, made a presentation to the board in July about their desire to see the board discuss adopting stricter regulations for wind farms.

But in the past four months, the board has not had any discussion on the matter at its monthly meetings.

"At (July's) presentation, all board members were given a notebook with approximately 300 pages outlining concerns over the erection of wind turbines in this county," Ihrke said. "Several concerns were voiced at this meeting, along with documentation and sources. Safety, health, reduction in property values and decommissioning were among those concerns."[...]

Yet "not once" has the county board discussed at its monthly meeting the possibility of updating the zoning ordinance to address this safety concern, Ihrke said.[...]

After hearing Ihrke's comments, the board had no discussion about her request and made no indication it would in future meetings.

Ihrke was one of several anti-wind activists that addressed the board last summer. The group provided the board members with thick binders containing the standard anti-wind misinformation, mixed with hyperbolic rumor and half-truths. The Board wasn't convinced, accordign to a July article in the News-Gazette:

Board member Pat Haskins of Sibley said she is open to exploring options, but expressed reservations about the information provided to the board by Energize Illinois.

"Some of the information seemed very one-sided," she said. "I've talked to other county board members from some of the other counties with existing wind farms, and they have not encountered these problems."

Bowen, along with board member Gene May, also questioned the reliability of the information presented.

"It seemed like a lot of what was presented was opinion," Bowen said. "So far, it appears there's a lot of newspaper articles expressing maybe the author's opinion or the opinions of the persons they were interviewing. And those aren't necessarily facts.

"I'm slowly working my way through the material, and if I find something that sticks out and shouts at me that I can find additional documentation on, that is factual, that's what I'm looking for — something that comes from a reliable source and can be supported in different ways," Bowen said. "I don't want someone opinion. I want real data.

It is still unclear why one would name a group "Energize Illinois" when its sole purpose is to protest and oppose energy development in Illinois.

State Rep Rejects Anti-Wind Groups' Claims of Turbine Health Dangers

From an article in the Bureau County Republican:

Though the state of Wisconsin is considering a moratorium on wind farm construction, Illinois legislators are not following that path at this time.

Wisconsin State Sen. Frank Lasee has introduced a Health Study for Wind Turbine legislation which would create a moratorium on future wind turbines in Wisconsin until the Public Service Commission receives a report from the Department of Health Services regarding the health impacts on people and animals.

According to Lasee’s press release, expert witnesses have stated industrial wind turbines can cause a variety of health problems, including sleep disturbance, headache, ear pressure, dizziness, vertigo, nausea, visual blurring, irritability, panic episodes, and depression.

Illinois State Rep. Don Moffitt said he was not aware of any similar bills in Illinois at this time, but that could change overnight.

When considering a similar bill for Illinois, Moffitt said he would want to make sure any positions are based upon objective and independent science, not on emotion. It’s good to raise questions and to get answers when it comes to concerns about public safety, but those questions need to be based upon independent, scientific and objective findings, he said.

The state of Illinois has already addressed issues surrounding the development of the wind industry within the state and has dealt with needed regulations, such as setbacks, Moffitt said.

In previous years, Illinois has gone through similar types of concerns with other land and farm-based operations, such as concerns about livestock farms causing health issues, the use of farm chemicals, and aerial spraying of crops, Moffitt said. Those issues were addressed and studies completed to make sure public safety is not threatened and is the top priority, he said.

Looking specifically at the wind farms, Moffitt said there are many merits to the wind farm industry. Wind energy is a renewable resource and a domestic resource, both of which are important. The wind industry create jobs locally in the construction and maintenance of wind farms. Plus, wind farms increase the tax base for local governments. These are all huge benefits, he said.

Again, concerns surrounding wind farms and any other industry all need to be addressed thoroughly and completely, but the issues must be examined with a scientific and objective approach, Moffitt said.