Muskegon Chronicle Editorial Board Shreds Oceana County Planning Commissions Offshore Wind Power Claims

This is pretty wonderful: The Muskegon Chronicle editorial board released a scathing criticism of the Anti-Offshore-Wind-Power Oceana County Planning Commission. Paula Holmes-Greeley takes the commission to task for their strangely timed news releases.

Unless you've been following the sordid details it's a bit inaccessible so I'll sum up: the Oceana Planning Commission issued new and bizarre, unsubstantiated claims about an offshore wind feasibility study they rejected 16 months ago.

The planning commission's news release is a transparent contrivance to make a case that a new State offshore wind regulatory frame should give undue decision making power to lakeshore municipalities. Basically...if 10 lakeshore communities wanted the proposal and ONE did not, the ONE could veto the whole thing for everybody.

Paula Holmes-Greeley of the Muskegon Chronicle Editorial Board pretty much shreds them:

Their press release said the planners conducted a study — after they had made their decision to reject the proposal — and discovered information about the number of jobs the project would have provided. It focused on where the construction of the bases for the turbines would have been located and whether it was even possible to build them at the proposed site.

In any case, they argued that would have meant fewer jobs in West Michigan and they wondered if Scandia hadn't done the study themselves or if the company had deliberately misled government officials and the public.

The only problem is the information the planners uncovered about the work site for the bases had been publicly reported nearly two years ago. Other arguments presented by the planners about a visit to the Norwegian firm that has constructed similar bases were undocumented.

[snip]

When the planners voted to reject the wind farm 16 months ago, they didn't turn down the project, they turned down the opportunity for a feasibility study that would have determined the viability of a Lake Michigan project. It also would have looked into the other issues that the Oceana planners now claim to have uncovered. Several other more serious issues like the effect of wind turbines on wildlife and other environmental factors also would have been reviewed.

But the Oceana planners rejected that opportunity.

Oceana County Planning Commissioners should be Embarrassed

There are so many things wrong with the Oceana County planning commissions recent news release regarding their decision to shut down research on an offhosre wind farm, I hardly know where to start. Ultimately, they should feel embarrassed at the implications of their own news release.

Michigan's representatives need to be very aware of the following information when offshore wind permitting legislation comes up for discussion again.

1. The planning commission claims it has discovered that the wind farm construction was "unfeasible" because the bases weren't possible, which begs the question...why are they crowing about stopping a wind farm that could not have come to pass, anyway?

To support their claim that the construction wasn't feasible, they cite a fellow with a home in Pentwater who visited the base production company in Norway and unilaterally claimed the bases weren't possible....no citation from the company itself.

Ultimately, if the bases and the wind farm were in fact not feasible, then the Oceana Planning Commissions decision was irrelevant since they claim the wind farm could not have been constructed anyway.

2. They claim to have done extensive research AFTER they voted to reject Scandia's request to research the feasibility of an offshore wind farm. Why didn't they do that research BEFORE they made a decision?

Sixteen months AFTER they cast their vote they are now claiming they have all the information. That by itself should be an embarrassment.

3. They make the claim that since one (1) component out of 8000 was being made in Northern Michigan, it somehow proves their claim that NO components would be made in Oceana County.

I know several talented machine shops in Oceana County that should be very upset by this bizarre leap. So what if ONE component is made up north in our own state. There are still 8000 left to manufacture, and Oceana's planning commissioners COULD HAVE required that a certain percentage of the turbines be made locally, like Muskegon's commissioners are doing with the Waste Water Treatment Facility wind farm.


4. They claim they, and only they, discovered that one (1) component of the turbines, out of 8000, would be built in Northern Michigan, when that information had been publicly available knowledge since August 2010 at the lastest

The planning commission should have known since mid 2010 where the turbine bases would be built. And in no way can claim to have unearthed this information themselves.

The information actually first came out in March 2010 when Scandia gave a presentation that explicitly showed that wind turbine bases would be constructed in shallow, protected waters in Northern Lake Michigan and then floated down. And they repeated this exact statement in multiple other presentations since then. In one, Planning Commissioner Roseman asked the Norwegian representative where the bases would be built and the representative pointed in the same place he had on multiple locations, but instead of saying "near the Traverse City region" this time he said "near the Kalamazoo region" and rather than pay attention to where the laser pointer was indicating or asking for clarification, Planning Commissioner Roseman chose to mock the Norwegian man and play the the crowd.

5. Remember that the Oceana planning commission didn't vote to shut down a wind farm. They voted to reject feasibility studies. They voted to turn DOWN more information. It's something of a joke now to claim they alone are privy to anything.

THIS is what happens when community rallies to do big things.

It's a huge deal!

It's a huge deal for renewable energy and wind power. It's a HUGE deal for the study and health of birds and bats over the Great Lakes. Its a HHHUGE deal for Great Lakes researchers and the ecological health of the Great Lakes.



And it's a huge deal for West Michigan and Muskegon and Grand Valley State Universtiy.

HUGE!

THIS is what happens when a region and a community rallies to do and reach for BIGGER things.



Today in Muskegon, Michigan, researches held a dedication ceremony for the FIRST EVER advanced research buoy in North America to be put into the water at all, ever, and it was launched right here at the Muskegon based, NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory.




This thing is going to monitor weather patters, wind speeds, bird migration, water temperatures and currents, water chemistry. This thing is the most advanced floating laboratory ever put in the water in the United States and it's going into my beloved lake.

Sure, sure...there are currently three advanced offshore wind research buoys. But two of them are currently languishing on the shore, waiting for the funding and go-ahead to actually be launched.

The launch of the buoy in the Great Lakes is the first introduction of this technology anywhere in North America, said Arn Boezaart, director of the Michigan Alternative and Renewable Energy Center. “The research buoy represents an amazing new capacity for wind research in the Great Lakes," he said. "It includes the most advanced wind measurement technology available."

Following a week of tests on Muskegon Lake, the buoy will move four miles offshore on Lake Michigan for a month-long trial.

Real-time data will be transmitted from the platform to researchers at Grand Valley, U-M and the Michigan Natural Features Inventory of Michigan State University. The research will provide information to support possible future development of offshore wind energy technology in the Great Lakes. MNFI research will focus on bird and bat flight patterns and migration studies.

The primary objective of the Lake Michigan offshore wind assessment is to gain a better understanding of the potential of offshore wind energy, as well as other physical, biological and environmental conditions on the Great Lakes. The research will provide information for the future development of offshore wind energy technology. In June 2010, the project secured $3.3 million in grants and research funds, including a $1.33 million energy efficiency grant from the Michigan Public Service Commission.

The world is inexorably moving in the direction of renewable energy.

It cannot be stopped.

We still do big things in America. We still reach for a better world. And there are still parts of America where people rally together to move forward. This buoy is a huge joint effort from many groups and people from all political ideologies, industries, non profit organizations, and scientific disciplines.

We WANT to be people of vision.

We WANT to dream big dreams.

We WANT to lead the way in renewable energy and a future sector of green manufacturing, offshore wind power.

And we're doing it right here in Muskegon, Michigan.

Koch Brothers and their attack on Wind Power

I hadn't really heard the names of the Koch Brothers until a year or two ago, after Obama got elected and certain segments of the population went bonkers and formed a hardline conservative faction now known at the TEA Party.

Now, though, it seems like they're catching the blame for everything from Wisconsin anti-union laws, the formation and mobilizing of the TEA Party, to the shenanigans of New Jersey Governor Christie and Michigan Governor Snyder, to a full on assault on offshore wind power...

...It's hard to know what to take seriously at this point. Maybe just some of it. Maybe all of it. They're definitely the villain du jour, though. And who can blame us liberals...the Koch Brothers are everything wrong with America. Here are some dudes, born into a massive fortune that their father got from US and Soviet government contracts. They've never had to claw and scrape their way to the top. They've just always been up there from birth rather than merit. And they seem to use their massive wealth to direct public policy in a direction that directly harms the social mobility of a segment of the population they themselves have never been a part of.

That's definitely the part that bothers me the most.

And now, oil heirs as they are, they're taking sharper aim at offshore wind. And though manufacturing, particularly in the Green sector, has been leading the way in America's otherwise anemic job growth, the Koch Brothers manage to claim that this type of technology does not create work for people....even as it happens all around us.

The war over America’s coastal-energy future has officially begun, and the result could determine whether we see wind turbines or catastrophic oil spills along our coastlines in coming years.

The opening salvo came in early July, when everyone’s favorite climate-hating, fossil-fuel-loving industrialist villains, the Koch brothers, released a so-called “cost-benefit analysis” of New Jersey offshore wind development plans through their front group Americans for Prosperity.

I'd heard some offhanded, seemingly perfunctory comments about how Michigan Representative Ray Franz's bill to ban offshore wind power was fueled by the Koch Brothers. That seemed a little far fetched at the time....would they really micromanage like that? It starts to feel less and less far fetched every day. There's definitely a financial advantage and incentive for them to fight offshore wind power at every turn.