City Newspaper Archives - 10/2007
ENVIRONMENT: Wind power's 'blight'
Published on Oct 02, 2007
Your article about the potential for generating electricity from an abundance of wind in the Rochester-Genesee-Finger Lakes Region was a nice introduction to the complexity and controversial nature of the energy and environmental policies. It is interesting that one of the primary reasons given for NOT embracing wind power as an alternative to fossil fuel-generated electricity is the "visual blight" caused by a traditional wind farm.
The Environmental Working Group listed some of the impacts for drilling for oil and gas, including some of the more aesthetic aspects of such endeavors:
Noise impacts: 0.5 miles;
Visual marring by wells: 5-plus miles;
Groundwater pollution: 20 miles;
Soil contaminated by dust: 55 miles;
Disruptions to animal migration: 75-80 miles;
Pollution dispersal: 200 miles.
Fortunately, there are not a lot of oil and gas wells in the City of Rochester. As long as the "visual blight" is in someone else's neighborhood, I suppose it's all right for some wind-power naysayers.
Some countries in the European Union are providing picture postcards of wind farms that are incorporated into otherwise scenic land and seascapes, proving again that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder."
Fred Stoss, Rochester(Stoss is associate librarian, Science and Engineering Library, SUNY Buffalo, and co-chairs the Task Force on the Environment of the American Library Association.)
