Offshore wind sails forward, but a different story on land

NORTH SMITHFIELD, R.I. -- Even as Rhode Island makes history as the first U.S. state with an offshore wind farm, its people are not so fond of wind turbines sprouting up on land near where they live.

Dreams of a wind-powered nation sparked by the pioneering Atlantic Ocean project are running aground back on shore, where conventional battles over aesthetics and property values have stymied wind projects here and around the country.

Ruth Pacheco said she didn't expect so much hostility when she invited a developer to build a giant wind turbine atop a forested hill at her 52-acre family farm in rural North Smithfield.

The 86-year-old proprietor of the Hi-on-a-Hill Herb Farm believes harvesting wind energy is the best way to preserve the land her family has owned and cultivated since the 1840s.

But she wasn't prepared for the dozens of "No Turbine" signs, erected outside nearly every home on the road leading up to her farm.

"We've lived here all our lives and seen people come and go," Pacheco said. "I guess you just can't take it personally. They've got tunnel vision out there."

Responding to the ire of Pacheco's neighbors, North Smithfield leaders are drafting a town-wide ban on wind turbines, though it is too late to affect Pacheco's project because it already has begun the permitting process.

Compared with the five-turbine, 30-megawatt offshore wind farm recently completed in blustery state waters and scheduled to switch on this fall, Rhode Island's 20 land-based wind turbines are more modest generators of energy, with a combined capacity of about 21 megawatts, enough to power more than 6,000 homes, or a small town about the size of North Smithfield.

They're becoming familiar landmarks in the nation's smallest state, visible from major highways and popular beaches, but Rhode Island still ranks near the bottom of the 40 states that produce some wind energy.

U.S. Energy Department records show Texas and California have the most turbines, each with more than 10,000.

The two big states vie with smaller windswept Plains states in producing the most wind energy. Iowa, Oklahoma, Illinois, Kansas and Minnesota are the leaders.

Unlike those farm states, Rhode Island is tiny and densely populated.

And people who like the idea of wind energy in the abstract rarely want it near their own backyards, according to a 2014 study by researchers at the University of Rhode Island that found the turbines don't hurt property values.

Pacheco's neighbors said their concerns include noise, maintenance and "shadow flicker," the blinking effect that occurs during parts of the year when the sun rises or sets behind the spinning blades.

They also are concerned about the height, which at 415 feet -- when the blade is pointing up -- would be almost as tall as Rhode Island's tallest building, a 26-story Providence skyscraper.

"To save her farm, she's affecting all of her neighbors," said Sharon Mayewski, whose 17-acre lot abuts Pacheco's. Mayewski is president of a new group called COURT, or Conserve Our Unique Rural Town, that was formed to halt the turbine project.

On a recent visit to Pacheco's farm, a wild turkey strolled beneath a mulberry tree as the proprietor and her two daughters showed off the property where they all grew up and still live in three adjacent houses.