The Fight To Keep Wind Turbines out of the Great Lakes

If you think the battle to prevent the industrialization of the Great Lakes has been won, think again.

The fight to keep wind turbines out of the Great Lakes didn’t end when the first such development proposed for Lake Erie was effectively killed last year. Boating, fishing, environmental and conservation interests cheered, but the battle to protect 22% of the Earth’s fresh water cannot be declared won.

New York Sen. Pete Harckham (D), chairman of the Senate Environmental Conservation Committee, has authored a bill calling for a pilot project with turbines in Lake Erie, according to recent reports in the Buffalo News.

It was just 14 months ago the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority determined that turbines should not be constructed in Lake Erie or Lake Ontario. (New York borders on both lakes.) The RDA concluded that turbines would cost more than other renewable energy options and wouldn’t offer a feasible contribution to state climate goals.

“Western New York does not want these wind turbines in Lake Erie,” said David Adrian, an aquatic biologist and member of the Citizens Against Wind Turbines in Lake Erie who has successfully fought for the lake. Moreover, the organization just got support from the Hamburg Town Board, which unanimously approved a resolution objecting to turbines in the lake.

So it seems only a matter of time that all lake-loving interests can expect to be drawn back to the battle. New York is still moving ahead with projects in other parts of the state, with two conditionally awarded wind projects in the Atlantic off Long Island.

Meanwhile, there’s a move to make Illinois the first Great Lakes state to establish an offshore wind farm, this one in Lake Michigan off Chicago. The proposed 30-turbine development would make it the first such installation in fresh water in North America. There is no doubt that once turbine development takes place anywhere in the Great Lakes, windmills will be built everywhere, with unresearched negative environmental impacts, much higher consumer energy costs, and questionable reliability.

Since no state has yet to ban turbines in their portions of the Great Lakes — Ontario imposed a moratorium against turbines in the Great Lakes more than a decade ago — it’s necessary that groups opposing such a potential environmental disaster work directly with local governments to block this bad idea.

Indeed, even proposed land-based turbine developments have run up against bans, moratoriums, construction limits and other policies that make new installations difficult. For example, in 2009, North Carolina banned wind projects in 23 counties in response to local objections. In 2014, Kentucky made it effectively impossible to build new turbines in all 120 counties. Connecticut did the same in eight counties, Vermont did it in 14 counties, and Tennessee stopped all new turbine projects in 91 of its 95 counties.

For those who are prepared to fight for the preservation of the Great Lakes — this region represents more than one third of annual new-boat sales — the battle may be best fought on local levels. And boaters, anglers and allies need to continue to be engaged.