LOCATION/TYPE

NEWS HOME

[ exact phrase in "" • results by date ]

[ Google-powered • results by relevance ]


Archive
RSS

Add NWW headlines to your site (click here)

Get weekly updates

WHAT TO DO
when your community is targeted

RSS

RSS feeds and more

Keep Wind Watch online and independent!

Donate via Paypal

Donate via Stripe

Selected Documents

All Documents

Research Links

Alerts

Press Releases

FAQs

Campaign Material

Photos & Graphics

Videos

Allied Groups

Wind Watch is a registered educational charity, founded in 2005.

News Watch Home

Heritage VP: No definite plans for Garden Wind Farm’s expansion 

Credit:  Pioneer Tribune | 2014-10-02 | www.pioneertribune.com ~~

MANISTIQUE – Despite rumors to the contrary, an official from Heritage Sustainable Energy says there are no definitive plans to erect more turbines on the Garden Peninsula. If, when, and how many turbines will be placed in any second phase of the Garden Wind Farm will be determined in the near future, but for now, the project is at a “standstill”.

The Garden Wind Farm is home to 14 wind turbines, at 295 feet each, spread over approximately 10,000 acres of land leased from Garden area residents. The project was completed in September 2012. In various documents, such as the contract between downstate Consumer’s Energy and Heritage for power purchase, the wind farm in Garden is referred to as Heritage Garden Wind Farm I, indicating a second phase is planned – eventually.

According to Heritage’s vice president of operations, Rick Wilson, the company has no immediate plans for the construction of more turbines.

“We don’t have any actual onthe ground plans whatsoever,” he explained. “We would like to expand – go in either north up into an area we’ve been looking at in Schoolcraft County, north of about the Cooks area … So we’ve been investigating the potential of a future project there, as well as … south of the village of Garden.”

For now, however, the project is at what Wilson referred to as a “stand still”.

“We’re obviously always looking for potential opportunities, but we don’t have any plans,” he said.

Some of the delay in planning is due to an update to Schoolcraft County’s wind turbine ordinance, approved by the county’s board of commissioners in June, which, according to Wilson, all but prohibits large-scale wind turbines in the county.

“That ordinance was entirely exclusionary in nature,” he said. “The way the ordinance is currently written doesn’t allow for any turbines of the utility scale to be placed anywhere in the entire county. It doesn’t work, as it is written, for us right now.”

During a Heritage presentation to the board in mid-June, following the ordinance adoption, Wilson was offered a list of audience questions by Commissioner Dan LaFoille. LaFoille asked that Wilson send answers to the questions back to the board for review.

Neither Wilson nor Heritage responded to the questions, and Wilson explained this was due to the nature of the submission.

“The questions didn’t come from commissioners themselves – they came from seemingly opponents to any wind farm developments, and they weren’t necessarily questions, per se – they were requests for information,’ he said. “We can provide them with facts, but we can’t respond to things that aren’t reasonable in nature.”

Wilson added that he or any other Heritage employee would be willing to answer questions that are “reasonable” and not based in “myth”.

Beside rumors of additional turbines,

Heritage has also recently been under scrutiny following claims from the American Bird Conservancy that the Garden Wind Turbines and any future developments are “threatening a major migratory bottleneck for Neotropical breeding birds and raptors” and “triggering serious Endangered Species Act concerns”.

According to Wilson, Heritage is currently completing the final phase of their own seven-year preand post-construction bird study, and once that’s complete, they will release all of the “detailed” data from that study.

“In general, I think that we are finding that the previous predictions of potentials for migratory bird fatalities, eagle fatalities, raptor fatalities, that were being made either by the (American) Bird Conservancy or by the (U.S.) Fish and Wildlife Service were grossly overestimated,” he said.

Source:  Pioneer Tribune | 2014-10-02 | www.pioneertribune.com

This article is the work of the source indicated. Any opinions expressed in it are not necessarily those of National Wind Watch.

The copyright of this article resides with the author or publisher indicated. As part of its noncommercial educational effort to present the environmental, social, scientific, and economic issues of large-scale wind power development to a global audience seeking such information, National Wind Watch endeavors to observe “fair use” as provided for in section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law and similar “fair dealing” provisions of the copyright laws of other nations. Send requests to excerpt, general inquiries, and comments via e-mail.

Wind Watch relies entirely
on User Funding
   Donate via Paypal
(via Paypal)
Donate via Stripe
(via Stripe)

Share:

e-mail X FB LI TG TG Share


News Watch Home

Get the Facts
CONTACT DONATE PRIVACY ABOUT SEARCH
© National Wind Watch, Inc.
Use of copyrighted material adheres to Fair Use.
"Wind Watch" is a registered trademark.

 Follow:

Wind Watch on X Wind Watch on Facebook

Wind Watch on Linked In Wind Watch on Mastodon