Windmill farm opponents prompt companies to pause

A wind farm planned for southern Dakota County is getting some blowback from nearby residents.

In a barrage of comments submitted to the state's Public Utilities Commission, neighbors and even a few people from other parts of the metro area criticized the proposal for a 10.84 megawatt wind farm in Greenvale Township, northeast of Northfield.

The project would be the first to concentrate multiple windmills in the seven-county metro area, and many people objected to that idea. Others aired concerns about safety, property values, noise and effects on wildlife. More than 30 people signed a petition asking the PUC for a contested case hearing.

The commotion has prompted Sparks Energy and Medin Renewable Energy to pause and rethink some aspects of its project. The companies have asked the PUC to delay action on permits in order to address public concerns.

Anna Schmalzbauer, co-owner of Sparks Energy, said the companies are trying to be sensitive to community anxieties. "We'll never make everyone happy, but we're making every effort to look at their feedback and look at what they're saying to develop a project that will alleviate those concerns and make people more comfortable moving forward," she said.

In particular, she said the companies are willing to reconsider the number of turbines and where they would be installed, with special attention to their distance from homes. There are about 20 houses within the 836-acre area and others just outside the border.

The original Greenvale Wind Farm plan calls for 11 two-bladed wind turbines sprinkled strategically across the farmland. An alternative, Schmalzbauer said, would be to place just six or seven larger windmills, likely 1.5 megawatt models with three blades.

"That's a big advantage, absolutely," said Christine Real de Azua, spokeswoman for the American Wind Energy Association. Much of the wind energy in the United States goes untapped, she said, because there aren't transmission lines.

But that reasoning doesn't appease concerned residents, many of whom note their support of alternative energy and opposition to the project in the same breath.

"There's generally sort of a warm, fuzzy, rose-colored-glasses feeling about wind turbines right now because they are rightfully a symbol of moving the right direction," said Ann Occhiato, who lives near the proposed wind farm site. "People are sort of forgetting that these industrial wind turbines are monster mega machines."

Occhiato and others worry about the effect on nearby Chub Lake and surrounding natural areas. And even the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources urged caution in comments about the project, noting that the original plan "may not adequately protect the Chub Creek Marsh wetland complex that is located within the project area."

But Ken Malecha, who leases and farms the land where the windmills may one day stand, chalks the fuss up to a bunch of people saying "not in my back yard" instead of looking at the bigger picture about energy supply.