More wind farm woes, this time in rural Oregon

William Yardley reports in Sunday's New York Times under the headline, Turbines Too Loud? Here, Take $5,000. The story reports just what the headline suggests: energy companies paying hush money to residents living near wind farms in order to get their agreement not to complain--even when the wind farms violate the state ordinance regarding noise. That ordinance "allows for noise to exceed what is considered an area’s ambient noise level by only a certain amount." Not surprisingly, such ambient noise levels are a bit hard to pin down.

The dateline for the story is Ione, population 321, in the state's high desert and amidst one of the nation's fastest growing wind-power regions. Here's an excerpt from Yardley's story that sets the stage:

Even out here — where the recession has steepened the steady decline of the rural economy, where people have long supported the massive dams that harness the Columbia River for hydroelectric power, where Oregon has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in tax incentives to cultivate alternative energy — pockets of resistance are rising with the windmills on the river banks.

Residents in small towns are fighting proposed projects, raising concerns about threats to birds and big game, as well as about the way the giant towers and their blinking lights spoil some of the West’s most alluring views.