Alternative energy from Lake St. Clair?
The answer is blowing in the wind

Residents opposed to seeing 400-foot-high windmills on the Lake St. Clair horizon got good news and bad news Tuesday night (May 4) at a War Memorial forum sponsored by state Rep. Tim Bledsoe.

The good news for the 150 who queued 10 deep at a microphone to question a panel of experts:

● No alternate-energy windmill applications are currently being accepted by the Ontario government.

● If Ontario did accept such a proposal for wind farms on Lake St. Clair, several years of studies would be done before approval could be granted.

● An Essex County, Ont., group is battling wind farm proposals for Lake Erie, where they would first be installed. On its website the group claims to have halted three efforts to move forward with the farms. It is raising $250,000 to oppose them in the Ontario courts. Another opposition website is Wind Concerns Ontario, a coalition of 42 groups.

● While Michigan is moving forward on developing wind power, Lake St. Clair is not included in those plans. The closest site would be Saginaw Bay.

The bad news: 

Legal expert Nick Schroeck, director of the Wayne State University Environmental Law Center, said U.S. citizens probably can’t do much to oppose the 155 windmills, some of which would be visible from the War Memorial's Fries Auditorium, if by some chance Ontario approved the wind farms.

Schroeck indicated Grosse Pointers wouldn’t have much standing in the Canadian courts with claims of noise pollution, water pollution, “dead air” for sailors and health concerns.

James Clift, public policy director with the Michigan Environmental Council and a member of the Michigan Wind Council, said, “It is safe to say the position of the governor that wind energy has tremendous potential, but there is a right way and a wrong way. Michigan officials have identified five areas of the state’s shoreline where they believe wind farms could be located. Most are in northern Michigan. They include: Saginaw Bay, Lake Huron off Sanilac County, southern Lake Michigan off Berrien County, near Delta County, and Mackinac County in northern Michigan."

Clift said wind farms would typically be located at least five miles offshore so noise pollution and any effect on migratory birds should not be a problem.

He said Michigan and Ontario officials were both “scratching their heads” over proposed windmills in Lake St. Clair.

Local citizens opposed to windmills along the Canadian shore claimed they would damage tourism and spoil nearby sailing because of dead-air pockets behind the windmill arrays. One challenged whether there was enough wind during the summer boating season to spin windmills. “We call Lake St. Clair, Lake Light & Variable,” he said. A marina owner said, “There are 50,000 boats between the Grosse Pointes and the Clinton River. Windmills are too damn big for this lake.”

Not everyone was opposed to the idea, however. A group of “mature women” calling themselves the Raging Grannies of Metro Detroit came dressed in grandmotherly shawls and flowered hats, and marched in singing a song called “Harness the Wind.” Their spokesperson asked, “Why is it taking us so long to do anything about renewable energy. We have a thousand miles of shoreline.”

Bledsoe closed the 90-minute meeting by promising to coordinate information on the Canadian Lake St. Clair proposals.

“We need to be able to continue to share information on this issue going forward," he said. "There doesn’t seem to be an immediate danger, but it is something we need to be vigilant about." He advised concerned citizens to contact him via email or call toll-free 888-254-5291.

While the forum went on, lake freighters and sport fishermen passed outside the windows on unruffled waters on a golden evening. As Bledsoe closed, the Raging Grannies sang: “Hear the wind blow along the shore across the waters, hear the wind blow. Coal-fired energy makes Earth a dust bowl, destroys the atmosphere, that’s too big a toll.”

The draft application by SouthPoint Wind for its Lake St. Clair wind farms is available here.

After the meeting dozens flocked to the lakeside windows to see what windmills as tall as 40-story buildings would look like against the skyline. The display was prepared by a private citizen, using his own calculations, and can be seen below:

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