I know you're venting your frustration, but surely there's a better response. And I don't mean in some handwavey moral-high-ground sense, but in the practical sense of: getting entrenched into us and them wastes time and energy. So what can you do? You have a huge platform here! Surely there are gristmill readers from Long Island -- help motivate them to support the Long Island Power Authority's plan, give them the info they need to take action. Help them figure out not just how to win, but how to persuade.

NIMBYs aren't going to go away. We need a better way to work with them.

This issue has been a huge problem in England, where the wealthy rural fox and hound crowd have been fighting  windfarms on the Irish Sea.   These kind of people are very hard to deal with - they have money, time & laywers - and usually a kind of unassailable sense of entitlement.  

I remember the first time I saw the wind farm at Altamont pass, I was struck by its beauty. The turbines themselves were stately and the sheer scale of the enormous wind farm had a majesty to it. Wind farms can be quite beautiful, in no small part because they represent a hopeful future of clean, renewable energy.

It would be wonderful to be able to see a wind farm from my house or favorite recreation spots; I would travel to get that view. Wind farms could set themselves up as tourist destinations if their managers could risk a bit of innovation. The opposition to offshore wind farms often seems to come from those who see an aesthetic blight, but who is representing the interests of those who see beauty in the moving sculpture? The usual alternative is more smog from burning fossil fuels -- how is that aesthetically preferable?

Beauty is, of course, one of those elusive qualities that differs between everyone - one of the wonders of being human, actually, is the fact that one man's (or woman's) beauty is another's trash heap.

I can see how a wind farm would look beautiful - like moving sculpture - but I can also understand objections from an aesthetic point of view.  When I am out enjoying nature, I am happiest when my view does not contain anything manmade.  Trees, rocks, mountains, waves, birds.... no houses, no electrical lines.. and I presume no wind turbines.  

However, I am not a NIMBY.  Unlike Jayne, I understand that I do use power and I believe that it is important to support clean power as much as possible.  If it can be clean and aesthetically pleasing at the same time.. even better.

That being said, how hard would it be to make the turbines a light blue color (instead of white) intended to blend into the sky/sea?  This would make them even more difficult to see on a clear day and might ease some of the aesthetic objections.

First off, I am all for the offshore wind farm and hope it gets built as soon as possible.

That said, Long Island NOT a grimy industrial smear with some grimy beaches. Sure there are some ugly parts, but there are also many beautiful parts of the island, especially further out towards the ends of the two forks (though there are nice beaches even in Queens). There are farms and forests, clean beaches with plovers, terns, sandpipers, ospreys, and many more. Frankly I would expect better of this blog  (one of my favorites) than to make such baseless comments.

Furthermore, shots like that do not help the movement to build the wind farm. NIMBYists will be reluctant to work with a movement that calls their home a dirty industrial smear.

Diana

Perhaps pointing out the options might help.  So how 'bout a coal fired plant in the neighboring town...let's see mercury in your tea or windmills on your horizon?  Or you could have your electricity limited to current capacity and deal with increasing blackouts as the neighborhood expands?  Seems to me these folks don't understand that increased capacity has to come from somewhere and the alternatives aren't exactly pretty...I think if the utility folks ever talked about putting up another coal/nuclear plant as an option, those windmills would be a whole lot more attractive.

How about multi-colored turbines! They'd be so pretty!!! Oh, no I won't be able to get that outta my head.

Okay, I'm a sucker for anything multi-colored, but even at off-white, I think they're beautiful. I'm guessing that, like house paint, the lighter colors are more weather-proof.

I wonder how many of those folks who oppose the wind farm have snapped photos of windmills (once) used to mill grain or draw water.

In the licensing of our last power plant the California Energy Commission had us perform an Environmental Justice survey and report.  At the time, 2001, I was not aware of environmental justice.  I had to come up to speed on it and while at first I found it kind of abstract and subject to abuse, over time I have come to value it as an important criteria for locating projects.  Our project passed its environmental justice test with flying colors.

Wind has special siting issues in that the wind can vary greatly from one location to another just a mile or so away, but public use lands have a higher standard for environmental justice than does private use land.  I know of one wind project that got relocated for some political reason and now that project has been used by the coal people as example of wind project don't perform.

I don't get it. What's the injustice? I expect that the wind farm is getting sited closer to poor people than to rich people, and yeah that's kind of irritating, but what is the suffering? What harm is being done?

Poor people instead of rich people have to look at tiny dots on the horizon? So what?

There are plenty of real EJ issues without us inventing them at the expense of clean power.

Grist: Dude, we are that frog.

If there is no injustice then there is no environment justice problem.  There is tendency to site faciliities based on social issues that favor one class over another on a regular basis.  As a result an injustice may occur.

I think the issue associated with environmental justice goes beyond rich and poor, it is about sharing in the burdens of infrastructure across all people while protecting certain areas.  However, there seems to few power resources near the rich, yet they are large consumers of power.  That in and of itself is not an environmental justice issue but on a larger scale it may be.

Water view property has incresed in value over the years.  As a result there has been a tendency for such property to be owned by those with above average income and wealth.  Off shore wind is a potential wind source that has an extra-ordinarly high capacity factor and may be capable of supporting as much as 5MW units.  If siting such units in view of the rich is an issue it will eliminate many good renewable energy sites close to load and force instead other resources inland.  Most likely these inland resources will be located near another class of people.

To me that seems to be a valid Environmental Justice issue.

There are already giant ugly power plants on Long Island, even in the pretty parts.  They burn OIL.  This is how the residents get their power, and forget about the environmental damage and peak oil concerns, it's bloody expensive!  The oil arrives on a tanker that parks out in the Sound and hooks up to the pipeline going to the nearest power plant on the Island.  That tanker ain't a very pretty sight, either.  Now contrast that with a bunch of barely discernible dots on the horizon bringing in nice, clean, abundant and cheap wind power, and you've got a case that any cranky Long Islander can appreciate.  

What do the people of Long Island use for heat and hot water?

How much does electricity cost on Long Island?

Oil power, wow, where does the oil come from?

Will Long Island be flooded by a rising sea level?

Is the resistance to wind financed by fossil vendors?

Anger at the destruction of Earth is appropriate.  I am very angry.

This all begs the question: When are aesthetic impacts so large that an "alternative" energy project is unacceptable?

In northern Puget Sound there have now been a spate of speculative applications to FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) for submerged tidal energy systems.  As of my last count there have been at least 8 of these applications in Puget Sound and the Straits of Juan de Fuca.

None of these systems actually exist yet. No one actually knows what the general (let alone site-specific) impacts are. One of the propsoed locations is Deception Pass. All salmon runs from and to the Skagit River system (the largest remaining native salmon runs in the lower 48) move through here, as do Orcas. FIsherman are already referring to the proposal as producing pre-filleted salmon.

However, to get back to my orginal question, Deception Pass State Park is the most heavily used state park in Washington (>2 million visitors/year) and the Pass has a CC constructed historic bridge. Its pretty difficult to imagine this kind of industrial development in this location as other than aesthetically atrocious.

So do we adopt the industrial mindset and just disregard aesthetics? Is there any place where we just say no more? Not here!

For years I've responded to the industrial forestry crowd's complaints that people don't like clearcut's only because they're ugly. I trot out all the ecological and economic reasons why clearcutting sucks, because if appearances are the only issue than hiding them solves the problem. But besides their ecological damage, clearcuts are ugly, and the visceral reaction people have to them is mostly because of that. And that reaction provides the entry point where they can be educated about the other impacts besides aesthetics.

So do we say "windfarms everywhere," "tidal hydro everywhere," "dam the Grand Canyon and full speed ahead"?

Steve Erickson

Certainly, the precincts to the east, like the Hamptons, are super rich. But the ones closer to the farm are hardly poor. LI is generally pretty well off in terms of income. We're looking at solidly middle class districts.

Why no response to those of us who took offense to your characterization of Long Island?

Diana

Apparently, on the basis of the map provided by the Long Island Power Association on their website, the location off Jones Beach Island was chosen because of its close proximity to an existing large power station on the mainland of Long Island, near Massapequa.  It is not impossible that some research was done into local wind speeds, wind regularity and navigational usage at several spots along the outer coast, including further east where the more "exclusive" communities are.  But if so, I did not notice at once any reference to that on the LIPA site.  My guess is the Sussex sub-station is a big grid connexion for all the southern shore of Long Island to the east of it.

I agree with Diana that David's odd mocking of Long Island, while nowhere near as lunk-headed as some of the howlers I regularly write : ) , is quite ill-informed and of very little benefit.

I would not worry too much about tidal power, that is not a proven technology and may go the route of ocean thermal exchange conversion (OTEC) for the same reason, corrosion.  Permits and power agreements are a prerequisite for fleecing investors.

I have old-timers on our Puget Sound island who long for the days of clear cut forests because the trees block their views.

It seems we have three classes of people; those that understand the consequences of runaway global warming, those that don't, and those that just don't care.  I do not the percentages, I don't care.  I am not ready to make nice while the Earth burns.

The nice people on beautiful Long Island will add to the destruction of my island nature conservancy.  That is far more insulting than an off-characterization of somebody's beach.

Massapequa, in fact, and left because there was alot of ugly there and not just the landscape. But as a youth, the beach was my salvation: a wild feeling place that couldn't be strip malled.

Now that I'm in San Francisco, I tried to do an analysis transfer: how would I feel about a windfarm off Ocean Beach? None too happy, but if it resulted in a smaller carbon footprint for my community, I'd agree to it and work to convince others of the important tradeoff.

I am coming to agree with the thesis that wilderness is a cultural construct. Now, I'm not addressing issues concerning the welfare of other species.  What appears to be the issue here is the significance of landscapes and seascapes to the human experience. A civilization  places its mark all over the geographic landscape. This was true in pre-Columbian America as well as every other culture and civilization since humans began using fire and domesticating animals and plants.

I find it possible to experience wildness everyday in San Francisco: the fog rushing over Twin Peaks; sea lions taking over marina docks and the sight of the Marin Headlands framed by the Bridge. I expect to experience that even when a windfarm floats beyond the break at Tobay Beach.

"Paradise is exactly like where you are right now... only much, much better." (Laurie Anderson)
 

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    The question is really whether this particular site is a good one for an offshore wind farm.  

    There is a basic problem with offshore windforms, which is that shore real estate in America is generally not occupied by poor people who are not white.  They can't afford it.

    So, any offshore windfarms are going to run smack up against either fairly well off middle class or wealthy people.  We've seen in Massachusetts that the wealthy really mean it when they say they don't want anything remotely industrial or view spoiling near them.

    Now in Long Island, we hear essentially the same thing from the (probably) upper middle class.

    We should not be surprised.  Americans naturally want to protect their property values (don't most of the posters here?  disclaimer, I am a tenant).

    Anything which might lower the value of their investment (which includes view issues) will be fought tooth and nail.  NIMBY is not just about aesthetics, but about money.

    One option is too give up the idea of offshore wind farms altogether, since there are no poor powerless people to site them next to.

    Another option would be to eliminate the system of private property, and do what makes sense of society, not individual property owners.  (I am not holding my breath).

    David only quotes one person, and the quote may not fully explain her views and ideas (we can all be taken out of context) (grin).  It will be interesting to see how the community as a whole reacts (I am too poor to buy the NYTimes article, so can't see if there are further views).

    Can we find a way to convince people that offshore wind farms are worth the 1) aesthetic damage and 2) (and I suspect more telling) potential property value damage?

   If we can, we can build them.  Otherwise it will be a long cold winter.

patrick

As a current Long Island resident (north shore) I concede it may be a suburban wasteland, but there is far less industrial activity now than in past years.  Our current blight is one of suburban sprawl and a backlash of NIMBYism.  

The current location as proposed makes sense as to the proximity to the onshore power plant, but it also brings the power supplied by the windfarm into the heart of the most densely populated area of the island (hence the greatest draw on the power grid). Placing the plant further east where it is less densely populated would not be as effective.  

I also find the objection to the appearance somewhat amusing, since I find the huge number of power lines crisscrossing every populated area of the Island far uglier.  As more and more development occurs, new transmission lines are just thrown up here and there without a thought to asthetics.  Think about it, we don't have any objection to this because we have been accustomed to the sight of them for as long as we can remember.  If wind farms were as common, I'm sure there wouldn't be these objections.

So please, Grist, don't knock the Island so hard, I produce more power than I use with my solar array, and I heat my house with wood in the winter (all trees downed in the neighborhood, none cut down just for fuel),  so we're trying here, too.

We have grown accustomed to the visual pollution of power lines and the noise pollution of humming transformers. Why? As you suggest, we have become accustomed to it, but also because we know the tradeoff: I can have electric lights if there's this ugly thing on my street.

How do we make people who see wind turbines as an eyesore see them as a positive tradeoff?

We are going through a similar problem in South Central Wisconsin. People don't want the lines because they're ugly, they don't want the turbines because they're ugly (they've figured out where to put them so they don't kill bats and birds).

what is it with u people down there?   there is nothing pretty about nyc.  the windmills would add something to your ugly city.  we have a wind farm up here, that supplies energy to over 55,000 homes.   they are awesome, but then again. it's beautiful here anyway.  NIMBY??  yeah right buddy-why is it ok for nyc not to want power lines/reactors, because it will "spoil the view"?  u gotta be kidding.   u already take our water.  why don't all of u try conserving?  ever hear of that?   we don't need "stop the power line"  signs in front of our homes, we need    CUT OFF NYC   signs.   just float into the ocean.  it's time u became a separate state.   my suggestion is to build big ferris wheels (pretty right?), put rats on them-u have millions of them.  and then put jiuliani and the george boys  in front of the rats.   u will have all the energy u need. if they  can run that fast. then, we can sell some energy to the arabs.   oh jaynie- ever see a bluebird in your heaven   in LI??   it's my state bird.    u people could care less about our environment.  but the day is coming, when all of u will want to live up here---lol, that should be interesting.   maybe i'll sell u some water.  amen to sftu's comment!   LET THE GAMES BEGIN.