Overcoming obstacles in wind energy development - Solar, Wind and Land: Conflicts in Renewable Energy Development - page 186

Resolving neighbor concerns
Cannon's public relations efforts, local hiring practices, and charitable
donations to local groups certainly helped to foster positive feelings about
the company and its project in Klickitat County. Nonetheless, neighbors
and local advocacy organizations still raised multiple concerns about the
project during the permitting and development process.
Even though Cannon's project site was within Klickitat County's
EOZ area, Cannon still had to obtain at least 20 different permits in
connection with its project. Merely satisfying the lengthy list of condi-
tions associated with these permits enabled Cannon to prevent the vast
majority of potential neighbor conflicts from its wind farm, including
such issues as dust, noise, erosion, stormwater drainage problems, fire
hazards, and electromagnetic interference. However, even with all of
these onerous conditions in place, some neighbors and other stake-
holders were still worried about how Cannon's project might adversely
affect them.
Ice throws
One concern that emerged late in the course of permitting for the project
was the possibility that turbines might throw chunks of ice onto U.S.
Highway 97, a public road that ran north-south through the center of
the project. As described in Chapter 2 of this topic, in cold, wet condi-
tions it is possible for turbines to become partially covered with snow
or ice. As a turbine's blades rotate, that motion can fling ice fragments
through the air, sometimes throwing them hundreds of meters away
from turbine towers. Given Klickitat County's frigid winter tempera-
tures and the proximity of some of Cannon's proposed turbine sites to
the highway, ice throwing posed a genuine risk in connection with the
project.
Klickitat County officials somehow overlooked this ice throwing risk
when they drafted its EOZ ordinance, so when Cannon proposed turbine
sites near U.S. Highway 97 the ordinance was silent on this issue. When
the potential for ice throwing drew attention during the permitting of
those sites, Cannon agreed to adjust some turbine locations to help
minimize ice throwing risks and also proposed an “ice throw protocol”
that the County ultimately incorporated as a new permit condition.
Under the protocol, Cannon agreed to inspect and potentially shut down
turbines whenever low temperatures and precipitation or high humidity
created conditions capable of generating ice throw risks. This combi-
nation of Cannon's protocol and careful siting has proven to be quite
effective: as of late 2013, there had been no reported damage from ice
throws at the project.