As an engineering educator who has been teaching, writing, and researching about wind farms for more than 10 years, I'd like to address some of the concerns that have been raised recently about Black Oak Wind Farm. (Full disclosure: I am a small investor in the project, and also have a strong interest in it as an educational resource for teaching local college and high school students.)

The first concern is safety. An operating wind farm is not inherently dangerous, any more than a car driving or airplane flying, as long as common-sense precautions are taken. I have toured working wind farms with students on several occasions and walked around the base of spinning turbines without any fear of injury.

Previous occurrences of turbines catching fire or collapsing (as happened at the nearby Fenner Wind Farm) have been cited. However, these incidents are very rare, given that there are 50,000 large turbines all across the U.S. No industry is 100 percent perfect all the time. Mechanical failures, fires, and other accidents do occasionally happen. 

The setbacks that Black Oak Wind Farm will put in place provide a reasonable layer of protection to the public. They provide enough distance from a turbine to prevent harm from the unlikely event of a fire or tower collapse. Furthermore, wind has a safety advantage compared to conventional energy since unlike coal or oil (recall the Upper Big Branch mine or Deepwater Horizon drilling rig disasters) the energy source itself, wind is not flammable.

I would also like to address the question of birds, noise, and alteration of the landscape. Regarding birds, the National Audubon Society has publicly endorsed "properly sited" (in regard to the presence of birds) wind farms because of the much larger threat that climate change poses to the health of bird species.

Regarding noise, I have visited and spent time at six different wind farms in our state and Ontario, and one of the questions I have examined is whether wind farms create significant noise that rises above background levels. From personal experience, I have found that, especially outside of the setback distance, moving turbines do not make excessive noise, and in any case in a high wind when they are rotating at top speed, other sound created by the wind drowns out the noise of the turbines.

In closing, compare the wind farm to another energy opportunity in our region that has been getting press lately, namely fracking. When a fracking project is developed, it generates royalties for a time, but when the gas is used up, that is the end. The economic benefit of wind energy, by contrast, is available indefinitely. The wind will keep blowing and blowing.