It appears that I have been remiss in updating my website with articles I wrote for the Charlotte News over the summer. The two articles below were published as commentaries rather than Legislative Reports. Read on.
Report
from the Legislature
--
Rep. Mike Yantachka
10/27/2017
Blowing in the
Autumn Wind
Although
the legislature is not in session, many legislators serve on special
committees that meet between sessions. The Legislative Committee on
Administrative Rules (LCAR) is one such committee, and it's been
keeping me busy this summer. LCAR consists of four Senators and four
Representatives and is responsible for reviewing rules proposed by
agencies of the executive branch of state government. Rules spell
out the process by which an agency administers laws. Examples include
the health standards of hotel accommodations, licensing of
professionals, and standards for fuel oil tanks in our homes. It is
LCAR's job to review the rules to ensure that
(1)
the rule is not arbitrary,
(2)
the rule is within the authority delegated to the agency,
(3)
the rule is not contrary to the intent of the legislature,
(4)
the agency provided an opportunity for maximizing public input,
(5)
the rule is written in a satisfactory style, and
(6)
the rule is accompanied by an adequate economic impact statement.
While
many rules are fairly straightforward, others generate a substantial
amount of contention and involve lots of analysis, testimony, and
legalistic considerations. LCAR is not a policy-making committee and
can only object to a rule or a portion of a rule if it violates one
of the criteria listed above. Some rules require more than one
meeting to pass muster, and LCAR can point out shortcomings and ask
for revisions.
One
of the most complex rules we had to consider is the one dealing with
limits on noise produced by wind turbines. This rule came before LCAR
in May from the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) with close to a
thousand pages of comments both pro and con and wasn't adopted until
this week, after several LCAR objections to certain elements on the
basis of being arbitrary or contrary to legislative intent. The
objections focused on a setback, the maximum sound levels for
nighttime and daytime, sound propagation modeling, and
post-construction noise monitoring. I apologize at this point for the
following very technical explanation of our consideration of this
rule.
The
PUC was tasked by the legislature in 2016 with determining maximum
allowable noise levels near residences to safeguard public health.
This legislation was passed in response to complaints by some
residents living near existing utility-scale wind facilities. The PUC
examined a variety of studies and heard testimony from numerous
proponents, opponents, environmentalists, and developers. One
provision required a wind turbine to be located no closer than ten
times its height to the nearest residence, nearly a mile in the case
of a utility-scale turbine. In addition, based on a 30 decibel indoor
World Health Organization criterion for undisturbed sleep and an
assumption that sound levels would attenuate, i.e. diminish, by 10 –
15 decibels from the exterior of a residence to the interior, the PUC
set the nighttime limit to a more conservative 39 decibels measured
100 feet from a residence. They also assumed that using a Noise
Reduction Operation (NRO) mode, turbine noise could be reduced by 3
decibels, and therefore set the daytime limit to 42 decibels. To
obtain a Certificate of Public Good (CPG), a developer would be
required to model the sound propagation using a standard acoustic
model based on the location of every proposed turbine and existing
residence using the maximum output noise level of the turbines. If
the CPG were granted and the turbines built, the developer would then
have to conduct measurements of the turbine sound filtering out
ambient, i.e. background, sounds according to a specific protocol.
Up to 200 measurements per second would be taken over several hours
both during the day and at night and then analyzed and reported to
the PUC periodically. You can imagine the detail that LCAR had to
deal with in evaluating whether the rules as proposed satisfied the
criteria above.
In
objecting to the ten times height setback rule, the majority of LCAR
members agreed that a distance requirement was arbitrary because
there is no direct correlation between distance and sound levels. The
sound levels in general decrease with distance, but the amount of
decrease depends on topography, atmospheric conditions, temperature
and season. In setting sound level limits, the committee agreed that
decibel levels at a residence were an appropriate standard, but not
distance. Setbacks are appropriate for safety and other
considerations, but not for sound levels, which is what this rule
deals with.
The
sound level limits themselves were considered to be somewhat
arbitrary in that there were various studies that specified different
attenuation estimates from outside to inside. Furthermore, the most
conservative values were used by the PUC, and the estimated
uncertainty in both the modeling algorithm and the manufacturer's
specifications would have to be added to the model results.
Environmental groups asserted that the rules would effectively
preclude utility-scale wind development in Vermont. That result
would be contrary to the intent of the legislature which recognizes
in statute that large wind generation is an effective and competitive
source of renewable energy.
Other
objections were raised because the rules were not clear as to why the
monitoring data had to be so granular (200 data points/second) and
what constituted a violation of the sound level limits. The PUC
responded to LCAR's objections with modification to the rules to
clarify modeling and monitoring protocols as well as to remove the
setback requirement which they agreed was redundant with the sound
limits. The use of the NRO mode to model nighttime levels was
allowed, and the modeling and manufacturer uncertainties will be used
as guidance rather than as a penalty for the modeling results. The
monitoring measurements will be done in 1 second intervals to reduce
the amount of data which will be averaged over 2 hours of data to
determine actual noise levels. With these changes to the rule, LCAR
voted to approve them.
Unfortunately,
the conservative application of the nine decibel exterior-interior
attenuation was not changed. However, since enough of the
conservative assumptions were mitigated, and since the PUC asserted
that the rule would not preclude utility-scale wind projects in
Vermont, I felt that the rule met the criteria for approval and voted
in the affirmative.
As
always, feel free to contact me anytime. I can be reached by phone
(802-233-5238) or by email (myantachka.dfa@gmail.com).
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Commentary
--
Rep. Mike Yantachka
9/10/2017
Renewable Energy In
Our Working Landscape
I was disappointed to read about the Public Utility Commission's denial of a Certificate of Public Good (CPG) for the proposed solar array off Route 7 near Mount Philo. Viewed from the western overlook of Mount Philo, the area covered by the solar array would look no larger than a postage stamp in the expanse. While I understand the desire to maintain the magnificent views of the Champlain Valley from the park's overlooks, I question our inability to accept renewable energy infrastructure as part of Vermont’s working landscape. Why is it that we accept certain man-made structures such as barns, silos, inns, etc., as acceptable and others such as a solar array as blights on the landscape? If the landowner were to erect a number of hoop houses covering the same area for growing plants, the visual effect would be about the same but probably would not elicit a peep from the public.
I think a lot of this attitude has to
do with what we're used to seeing. How often do we notice the
utility poles that line our roadways? We may not like how a gas
station convenience store along Route 7 looks, but we are willing to
accept it. These structures could be considered unsightly, but we
don't object to them because we see them as being necessary for
providing the services we value.
The two super-storms of Harvey and
Irma, whose power was magnified by the warming oceans, are the most
recent extreme effects of climate change. There is no denying that
climate change is being caused by the exponential increase in our use
of fossil fuels over the last 150 years. Many people choose to take
actions to mitigate their own carbon footprint, such as improving the
energy efficiency of their homes, installing solar panels or small
wind turbines for household use, driving an electric vehicle (EV) or
using alternative transportation. While these individual actions
help, they have a limited effect even when taken cumulatively because
they are often unavailable to the majority of people due to factors
such as income, availability, location, or circumstance. For example,
it doesn't make sense for a renter to install solar panels or a heat
pump in their unit. Likewise, landlords don't have the incentive
because renters are generally responsible for their own utility
bills. As a result, to achieve the renewable energy goals we desire,
there have to be societal efforts to provide opportunities for those
who are otherwise shut out of the renewable energy economy. Climate
change is a global problem with society-wide consequences, and it
will take society-wide efforts to address it.
This is where large scale solar and
wind power can help. Currently 55% of our electricity comes from
renewable sources. About 25% of Vermont's electrical energy comes
from hydro power, 20% from biomass, 8% from wind and about 2% from
solar. Vermont has a statutory goal of reaching 75% renewable
electric energy by 2032. Our utilities are required to reach this
goal by the Renewable Energy Standard Act (Act 56) of 2015.
Achieving these goals will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve
public health, create more high paying jobs that already make up 5%
of our workforce, and improve the reliability of our electrical
system through distributed generation. While solar net metering and
wind are currently a small part of our energy mix, they are the
fastest growing segment of our renewable energy economy.
However, there seems to be a disconnect
between our desire to achieve these goals and our acceptance of the
necessary infrastructure. Just as we have become used to seeing a
variety of alterations to our landscape from buildings, roads, and
utility poles, we need to start seeing solar arrays and wind towers
as part of our working landscape too. They don’t have to be
everywhere, but they need to be somewhere. A harvest of solar energy
is just as useful and valuable as a harvest of corn, barley, hay or
grapes. A line of wind turbines on a ridge brings as much or more to
our lifestyle as the ski trails cut into a mountainside. To meet our
current and future energy needs, only a small fraction of our
landscape is required for this infrastructure. Kingdom Community Wind
in Lowell, the largest wind farm in the state, occupies only 4 of
Vermont’s 400 miles of ridgelines. Over time, I expect that we will
get used to seeing these elements as part of the Vermont character.
This needs to happen sooner than later.
