Wind farms of change are coming to Hartland

Al Batt, Tales from Exit 22

Published Wednesday, September 30, 2009

I was trying to find a road that was not closed.

I wasn’t lost, but some of the roads I was supposed to be driving on were. No man is truly lost until he has no idea where he is for at least 48 hours.

I came across a wind farm. The wind turbines were taking the landscape for a spin. One was not turning. I had the urge to blow on it. If I had been Scooby-Doo, I would have said, “Ruhr oh! Rind rurbines!” It’s fun to ralk rike, Scooby—er, talk like Scooby when near a wind farm.

I was following an Amish fellow who seemed to know where he was going. He had a hay wagon pulled by horses. He was hauling a load of loose hay with a pitchfork sticking up from the middle of the pile. I’m sure that he had his team of horses floored, but he was moving with the speed of a glacier. I was thankful that the good farmer was not transporting parts to the wind turbines. I see pieces of these turbines being carried by tractor-trailer rigs that are moving like cruise ships down the road.

The turbines had me surrounded. They made me feel like I should have been wearing a helmet. They could try all they wanted to blend in, but it wasn’t going to happen. They were all tall enough to play in the NBA, but the wind turbines had not gathered to play basketball or for any other social interaction.

I looked at the tall structures. The wind turbines are like lutefisk or soccer — people either love them or hate them. There are those who would rather have plate spinners. I have heard many discussions regarding the wind farms. Interestingly, all the talks have been prime examples of civil discourse. There has been none of that snarkiness like that found in a brood of bickering children riding in a minivan.

Are the wind turbines a blight upon a once bucolic landscape? They were not built by the National Endowment for the Arts. Many folks consider them ugly, but many others feel the same about minivans, livestock confinement facilities, satellite TV dishes, monoculture crops, cell phone towers, silos, large farm equipment, swimming pools, and homes with three-stall garages. We all see things through different eyes. There is no doubt that life is full of bumps and stumps.

A wind farm is coming to my part of the world. Why Hartland? Because it is windy here. There is a lot of hot air that some blame on the Norwegian ancestry of most of the residents. My neighbor says that if the wind quit blowing, we’d all fall down. Another adds that the only thing that changes here is the direction from which the wind blows. Now the wind will bring other changes.

The wind farm will change our lives. Everything new changes lives. Souvenir stands will pop up selling T-shirts reading, “I have no worries. I’m windy.” Someone will rent the turbines to deer hunters to put deer stands on. We have been told to expect a gathering of people that would make the number of attendees at Woodstock appear like those at a seminar on foot fungus in comparison.

I perused a map of the proposed wind turbines for my neck of the woods. It looked like something that John Madden had scribbled Xs and Os upon.

Most of my high school classmates came from families who owned windmills. Windmills grew on farms. These turbines are new and different. They are like the old windmills on steroids and produce electricity instead of water. Change is constant and often necessary, but seldom easy. The wind farm will bring challenges. Roads will suffer stress, as will those who drive those roads — or attempt to drive them. It will be OK. Dorothy was right when she said that there is no place like home.

I sincerely hope that wind energy will address global climate change and reduce America’s reliance on fossil fuels. I hope that it will be the smallest alligator in the swamp when it comes to being a danger to birds and bats. The local wind farm will bring jobs, business for local enterprises, payments to landlords, and taxes to local governments. The local college is offering training for students who will learn to provide health care for the turbines. Apparently, you can’t fix them with duct tape and a hammer.

As wind plots its ascension to power, I hope that the wind turbines will use their power for good.

If the wind turbines don’t work as they are supposed to, the government can give the “Cash for Clunkers” program a second chance.

Hartland resident Al Batt’s columns appear every Wednesday and Sunday.

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