The Transcript reports some retired engineer in West Roxbury wants to put a wind turbine right at the top of Millennium Park. He also wants to replace a wildflower field with solar panels.
At the risk of sounding like an environmental hypocrite (I drive a Prius and stuff): NO!!!
The park is a wonderful, rare commodity in Boston: A wide open expanse with gorgeous views (plus plenty of room for recreation). Now this guy wants to stick a big pole in the middle of this view - a 100-foot high, 16-foot diameter pole at the end of the park - where there are now two sheltered benches for looking out over the countryside. Why not investigate putting windmills on top of downtown buildings or the Pru and Hancock? Or up on Bellevue Hill at the other end of West Roxbury - where there are already two MWRA water towers? I bet there's a lot of wind there, too.
Also, he wants to create a West Roxbury advisory group for the project. Given that this is a citywide resource, why limit it to them, as opposed to opening it to people who actually use the park (raises hand). It's not like the park is in the middle of the neighborhood.
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Comments
Pure NIMBYISM
By Dan Farnkoff
Thu, 08/14/2008 - 5:11pm
which is fine as long as you also oppose the Cape Wind project. You can't have it both ways, I'm afraid. Nobody wants their view to suffer, nobody wants to have to make a sacrifice, but everybody wants everybody else to cut down on fossil fuel consumption and be more "eco-friendly"- hence the eternal deadlock.
It's not my backyard
By adamg
Thu, 08/14/2008 - 5:19pm
But in any case, there are plenty of high, windy areas in Boston. Take Bellevue Hill - which already has these giant MWRA tanks atop it - one of which is already visible from throughout West Roxbury.
I don't oppose Cape Wind, in part because the visual impact from those turbines would be a lot less. There, the blades would be five miles out. Here, it'd be a big pole right in the middle of a park - where people now play soccer, fly kites (guess no more of that), just walk around, etc.
Hey, let's replace the monument in the middle of the Common with a wind turbine!
SOOOOOO lets put them in an
By ShadyMilkMan
Thu, 08/14/2008 - 5:24pm
SOOOOOO lets put them in an area that is already suffering from blocked views due to infrastructure that is supposed to help everybody? This is where the rubber meets the road when it comes to environmentalism, either people in nice areas are willing to bear part of the burden or they are not. Everytime a windmill tries to go up anywhere where the average income is more than 50,000 a year things seem to stop it from happeneing, meanwhile Chelsea and Hull both have windmills at this point...
No, let's not put them all in Hull
By adamg
Thu, 08/14/2008 - 5:49pm
But just because some retired engineer notices it's windy in a park doesn't mean we should automatically do what he says and put a generator right in that park.
I've already identified one other place in West Roxbury where a windmill could go with less impact. It's actually in a park, too - the top of Bellevue Hill is part of the Stony Brook Reservation, which the state has already carved up, anyway (unless you consider a skating rink and a baseball field to be a natural part of a forest).
For that matter, the 128 median "strip" in Dedham would be a cool place to investigate wind power. It's wide enough the state was able to build a new Norfolk County jail there; I'm sure they could fit a windmill or a three in as well.
And please, cut the elitism stuff. Millennium Park isn't some exclusive preserve just for West Roxbury residents. You might go up there some weekend and count how many languages you can hear on the soccer fields. We're not just talking about views here - we're talking about removing part of an actual park with whatever footprint this thing would take up, which you know would include additional land for maintenance, fencing, etc.
Are we really that hard up for windmill space that we have to put them in parks?
Planning and Scoping?
By SwirlyGrrl
Thu, 08/14/2008 - 5:40pm
I don't have a dog in this walk, but the flipside of NIMBY is to just put anything anywhere we would like to, regardless of who or what it impacts. Gee, lets put a turbine here and solar panels there BECAUSE it's GREEN and NOW and I WANT IT. Never mind that a technical evaluation might prove it to be a boondoggle, and that there may be more efficient sites for either or both.
Boston is a perfect crucible of both problems, the ad hoc development and the knee-jerk reaction. Neither are reasoned responses, including your little ad hom rant there Dan.
There is a turbine under construction on my son's middle school in Medford, but only after a couple of years of evaluation of wind data. Other municipal sites are being evaluated. They did a similar study of the rock top behind our house at the high school, and found that it wouldn't be worthwhile despite everybody thinking it would.
One has to ask then: why is this even considered an option? Is there a master plan for wind/solar in Boston that identified this site? I see they want to study it to see if it is a viable place to put a turbine - but what about the solar panels? Who is pushing this and what is their motivation: save money for the city? Demonstrate the technology? Sell things to the city for private profit? All these motivations can be valid, but not when accompanied by a "gee lets put one right here because we know it would work because everyone says it's got windy up there and SHUT UP YOU NIMBY BLAH BLAH" response to anybody pointing out the downside. While the burdens of reducing fossil use should be distributed, the resources need to be directed toward sites where they will actually work. Furthermore, a master plan needs to be drawn up to make sure that the burdens really are distributed and that facilities aren't clustered in a few "wrecked" sites.
Master plan?
By adamg
Thu, 08/14/2008 - 5:53pm
Hah! Read the article: It's some guy who noticed it's windy at the top of the park and thought, "gee, what a great place to put a windmill!"
Now, to his credit, he does want to study the site first (using some kite-mounted monitor, which is kind of ironic, since I bet the city would have to ban kite flying if this thing went in).
Medford Clean Energy Committee
By SwirlyGrrl
Thu, 08/14/2008 - 6:47pm
It isn't a master plan, but it really kind of works like one for alternative energy investigation in Medford. Here's news blurb for the wind turbine and public meeting. The McGlynn school is one of the two that sit just off of I-93 at Rt. 16.
The scoping process for various other "small wind" sites is underway. You don't need one of these babies:[img]http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1366/1040277219_9a1... ...in fact, they have needs you may not want!
(and, ohhhh yes ... these endless runs of huge turbines in a silently whispering landscape are way more impressive in person!)
Silenty?
By Eighthman
Fri, 08/15/2008 - 1:07pm
Once you put a turbine in, the landscape is no longer silent (unless you're far away). They make noise -- not that I'm objecting to it, just pointing out that they aren't silent.
Once again, I concur with
By Anonymous
Thu, 08/14/2008 - 6:47pm
Once again, I concur with Swrrly.
Millennium Park is a nice place to go for a walk, take a kidlet, play soccer or launch a canoe. IT IS ALSO a capped city dump with thousands upon thousand of tons of garbage, toxic and otherwise. Next time you're there, as you start driving up the hill, realize every foot of elevation represents tons of "land fill". Great spot for a dump... right on the banks of the river Charles.
It does get a breeze when there is none elsewhere. I'd have no objection to sighting a wind farm there if we all shared in the benefit, previous planning considerations notwithstanding.
Great idea!
By bph
Thu, 08/14/2008 - 5:39pm
I think it's a great idea.
And I live in W. Roxbury and I use the park.
We need renewable energy, and I just don't see the down-side of wind turbines.
But, I wouldn't worry about it. If the W. Roxbury groups are involved, the ones that don't like any development, it will be stopped.
Um, yeah
By adamg
Thu, 08/14/2008 - 5:50pm
And probably the same exact people who don't want apartments on Rivermoor Road.
transportation infrastructure
By Anonymous
Thu, 08/14/2008 - 6:59pm
My issue with Rivermoor Road Aaprtments is transportation infrastructure. There is one route in and out, the traffic from which must travel the already overburdened parkway. You think they'd consider adding a lane and timing the lights?
traffic
By bph
Thu, 08/14/2008 - 7:56pm
I think the traffic on the Parkway would be a nuisance for the residents at Rivermoor, but would not cause a noticeable increase in traffic. The traffic is mostly people passing through on their way from Boston back to the suburbs.
Home Depot
By adamg
Thu, 08/14/2008 - 8:14pm
Hasn't the damage there already been done with a giant warehouse store on a parkway? Still, one would hope for some changes at that intersection to avoid rush-hour problems.
Naive question
By Jay Levitt
Thu, 08/14/2008 - 6:52pm
Are there people working on more-attractive windmills? It seems that the best place for a windmill is always a big, open space - like, say, a park, or a shoreline.
We look at old-style wooden windmills, water wheels, wagons, and other early-industrial structures as "historic". Save the old mill!
Ditto for big, potentially ugly buildings: offices, apartments, whatever. The architects took edifices that gobbled up the sky, and made them so nice to look at, skylines are considered a valuable view.
What are the immutable characteristics of turbines that make them unattractive?
Suggestion #1: Attach a giant version of those old sparkler-wheels, the ones with the spring-loaded thumb catch. Whee! Fireworks!
Size Matters
By SwirlyGrrl
Thu, 08/14/2008 - 7:24pm
The biggest turbines are the ones that are out to sea and are constructed at sea - like the ones off of Denmark.
The next biggest are ones like the wind farms out in Central Oregon, shown above. They are somewhat larger than the ones in Hull or at the IBEW Hall.
There are far smaller turbines that go on poles at homes, on top of commercial buildings, etc. These are often unobtrusive to invisible, require far less infrastructure to support, and generate small-scale amounts of energy. They are much easier to site and, taken together, might be more efficient or create more generating capacity than One Big One.