Wind farm promoters seem indifferent to destruction of residential property values.

Huron County government acknowledges property value destruction by making it a virtue. A recent amendment to the County master plan says wind farms are desirable because they discourage residential development. This begs the question of what happens to the value of existing residendial property. Most of the land leased by wind farm agents in Huron County (80,000+ acres and counting as of late April '08) is already enrolled in PA 116, Michigan's Farmland Preservation Act. Enacted in the early 1970's, it gives farmland owners a significant break on property taxes for limiting the right to develop their property for non agriculture purposes. The State has made an exception for wind turbines. (Ironically farmer's are more likely to lease land to wind agents if it is already in PA 116. )

Huron County is not the only area in Michigan that will have wind farm issues. Below is a slide from a powerpoint presentation at an April 23, 2008 meeting of a State of Michigan sponsored Wind Work Group.

During the Wind Work Group meeting offshore wind farms were mentioned. Saginaw Bay and Point Aux Barques were described as having good off shore potential. Prospective buyers of shoreline property may avoid Saginaw Bay and Lake Huron shoreline property until wind farm issues are clarified. There are so many places in Michigan where wind farms might be established, on or off shore, that recreational property in Michigan will be a risky investment for the forseeable future. 35 years ago the proposed Huron County Sewage Farm hurt property values in the same way.

The U.S. Department of Energy released a report promoting the goal of wind power generating 20% of American electricity by 2030. Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy pdf The report indicates that, to accomplish that goal, would require 19,305 square miles of land and another 4,247 square miles of offshore area along U.S. coastlines. (page 110 of the report). For comparison, the entire lower peninsula of Michigan is 37,000 square miles and the entire surface of Lake Huron is 23,000 square miles. Since the wind farms would be spread all over the U.S. a significantly larger area would be affected as far as property values. Offshore wind farms in most locations would have to be near the shore in reletively shallow water and follow thousands of miles of shoreline.

The Huron Daily Tribune reported on a meeting of the Lake Township Planning Commission April 23, 2008 where an accuostics engineer talked about wind turbine noise and recommended the Commission adopt a wind turbine noise ordinance more stringent than State of Michigan guidelines. A gentleman named Gene Champagne spoke from the audience. Mr Champagne is surrounded by turbines in the Harvest wind farm near Elkton and he says the sound is constant and a problem for him. He said he has a dozen lawn chairs around his home and invited anyone to stop by anytime to listen. There is the best reading I've found about windmill noise. At the end of the paper is information about impacts on property values that seems well informed.

Here is a map of the Elkton wind farm. It appears the designers of the project often took full advantage of the 1000' foot zoning setback from homes for nothing more than reducing the cost of access roads and transmission lines. Here is the Google Earth kmz file that was made for the photo below. Download and save with a kmz extension and it will load directly into GE by double clicking the file name, assuming Google Earth is installed on your computer. Harvest Wind Farm Site Layout plus residences for Google Earth (kmz 68KB) You can also see residences listed for sale, or lack of them, around Harvest wind farm updated real time on Google Earth. Download this file and run it in Google Earth for listings updated automatically. Trulia.com real time residential real estate listings for Huron County (kmz 1KB)

Calumet County Wisconsin recently amended it's wind turbine ordinance relating to wind turbine noise. They included an 1,800' exclusion area around residences. If the same were done in Lake Township here is what it might look like.

Tug Hill, New York residents talk about living with 120 wind turbines. (Google video). Here are links to people with concerns about wind farms in their neighborhoods. Here a good source of wind farm news from around the world. Wind farm seems to be another word for lawsuit. Two sources for wind farm news stories Wind-watch.org Windaction.org

Mars Hill residents write about noise problems.