By Douglas Hunter
Winnipeg Free Press

On the way to the Hudson River valley in early May, I made a point of detouring through Lewis County in upstate New York, to see the 320-[MW] Maple Ridge Wind Farm, which began operating in 2006. With 195 turbines, it is the largest installation in eastern North America.

I’ve long been skeptically supportive of wind power, skeptical in terms of whether we’re putting farms in the right place, where they can actually generate enough juice to justify their expense. I’ve been fearful of their introduction to natural areas like parks, but I’ve also found the anti-wind lobby exasperating in its at times hysterical, out-of-date facts, plain weird allegations (like electromagnetic-induced illnesses), and a propensity to propagate fringe-element denials of climate-change science.

All that said, I wanted to see for myself what life might be like in the midst of a major wind farm.
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