Planning Board sets meeting on wind turbines

Credit: January 16, 2025 · By James Merolla · newportthisweek.com ~~

It may be late in the state process, but the Middletown Planning Board weighed in on Jan. 8 about wind turbines and set an agenda item at their Feb. 12 meeting for residents to vent their concerns about wind turbines dotting the local horizon.

Board member Leon Amarant expressed concern about windmills ruining the vistas of town beaches.

“[Should] the Planning Board consider talking about what is happening in our ocean?” he asked. “Every single day, you see a new turbine. If you drive down, all you see is a bunch of blinking lights. It has changed the landscape of Middletown. And I think no one realized how much of an impact these things would have visually.”

Amarant said he has a “visceral reaction to it and it’s only getting worse.” He noted that other communities, such as Portsmouth, have fought back.

Amarant’s remarks came two days after Councilor Dennis Turano raised similar issues with local state legislators.

Planning Board Chair Arthur Weber said he thought it might be a little late to formally protest what is already up and has been federally approved. But Amarant said another project in the works, the Mayflower Project to run cable from South County through the Sakonnet River into Massachusetts, will also affect Middletown waters.

“Where they have done this in other communities, it has disrupted those communities significantly, with noise, with stirring up the riverbed,” he said.

Board member Mike Fenton disagreed, saying he could only see the windmills off Sachuest Point on a very clear day. “Visually, I don’t think it’s that horrible,” he said.

He said the cable up the Sakonnet River will mostly impact the Island Park area in Portsmouth.

However, board member Joseph Pierik echoed Amarant’s observations.

“When I go home tonight, I will sit at my dining room table and look out my window and see dozens of flashing red lights. It’s terrible,” he said. “And I think it negatively impacts our property values in Middletown, especially people who have water views. When they run that cable up the Sakonnet River, it’s not going to be a pretty thing.”

Assistant town solicitor Michael Monti advised the board to post this as an agenda item for its next meeting so the public can add its concerns.

Source: January 16, 2025 · By James Merolla · newportthisweek.com

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