A Tale of Two Tilting at Turbines

 
This wind turbine was raised today at Swan Point at the home of Ken Robinson.  The horse at left provided the brawn to lift the tower after Maryland bureaucrats would not allow the use of a crane.
Photo for ST. MARY'S TODAY by NBC4Washington.

 

By Kenneth C. Rossignol

ST. MARY’S TODAY

ISSUE, Md. (March 11, 2009) ---  The efforts of two residents of Southern Maryland to achieve energy independence have been blocked for much of the past year, not by Opec oil barons of the middle east, not greedy oil distributors here in the United States eager to preserve their customer base and not by coal barons on Wall Street anxious to keep their mines humming. Nope, the best efforts of two citizens to erect wind turbines have been met with delay, deception and duplicitous bureaucrats with an overwhelming amount of hot air from bloviating politicians.

Right in Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s home district, not far from his own home, are the first two homeowners getting close to being able to drastically cut their electric bills by creating energy from the wind that blows every day and on some days the wind will blow hard enough that they will not only have more energy than they can consume but they will be able to sell the extra juice to SMECO.

Technical difficulties involving electric flowing into what the power company calls it’s “grid” or network of power lines produced initial concerns but Valley Lee resident Richard Johnson, an engineer at Pax River, the technology exists to prevent that from taking place and accidently frying linemen working during a power outage.

When Johnson attempted to obtain a permit in St. Mary’s County he ran into a buzzsaw of problems which he simply took apart piece by piece and walked through the county legal process a new ordinance which passed in December. 

He was first told he would have to apply for a zoning variance for which he would have to pay $550 to the county for them to hear his plea.

Johnson was attempting to fund this wind turbine out of his own pocket to reduce his family’s use of energy which is produced at the power plants on the Potomac and Patuxent Rivers, both of which consume trainloads of coal and pipelines full of oil every day.

Johnson was not asking for the government to give him a grant, give him a no interest loan or come in and build a wind turbine for him.  He wasn’t asking for government volunteers or for Congress to pass a law, he simply wanted a building permit to erect what the Amish have been doing for decades in St. Mary’s County, building a tower to put turning blades at the top to catch the wind to generate power.

What the government really needed to do was to get out of the way.

This week Congressman Hoyer stopped his work on Capitol Hill and rushed out to Annapolis to give a speech at the Maryland Clean Energy Summit.

“For Maryland, this energy investment is substantial,” said Hoyer of the money that the federal government will funnel to the state. “The Maryland Energy Administration will receive roughly $53 million in state energy program funds. The state will also receive roughly $63 million in weatherization funds and an additional $50 million through the energy efficiency and conservation block grant program created in the 2007 energy law. Nearly one half of those funds will go directly to Maryland’s 10 most populated cities and counties. 10 most populated cities and counties. $14 million will pass-through to cities with populations under 35,0000 or counties with populations under 200,000.   

“All of these investments do two essential things. First, they put Marylanders to work in the private sector, doing everything from weatherizing buildings to upgrading transmission lines. Second, they save us money in the long term—because this work is the only way to free us from reliance on foreign oil. If you think its price is staying low forever, I have an SUV to sell you. Above all, Congress has worked with President Obama to ensure that, when it comes, our recovery will not be shallow and short-lived—but deep, and built on the most solid foundation.”

But Rich Johnson and Ken Robinson, who lives in Swan Point on the Potomac, near a small village named Issue, aren’t looking for any government help, they just want the government to help by not keeping them from putting up wind turbines.

Robinson finally got to the end of the line and is able today to erect his wind turbine.

But when Critical Area staff realized he planned to use a crane to lift the tower into the air they told him no.  Robinson said don’t worry, he will just use a horse, the same way the Amish have been doing for a hundred years.

So this morning while clean energy enthusiasts are streaming to Robinson’s home to see the progress of the new wind turbine being erected, the horse which is ready to do the job is powering up too.  He is off on one side of the lawn chewing on the grass.

As for Johnson, he reports that Commissioner Jackie Russell, who was appointed to the Critical Area Commission now tells him that isn’t the Critical Area’s executive director who is requiring him to have to get a variance but it was the county staff doing the double dealing.

But the county staff was recorded on the county’s TV system in an open public session endorsing the wind turbine and stating that a variance isn’t necessary.

No reply has yet been obtained from Governor Martin O’Malley on why he appears to support clean energy but fails to keep bureaucrats from blocking citizen attempts to actually build clean energy.

It appears that Commissioner Russell has spent a lot of time walking like the crabs he catches, and now talks the same way…sideways.

A final report on how the tower went up in Charles County will soon be updated with a report on Johnson’s attempt to do so in St. Mary’s.  

As for Robinson’s borrowed horse, perhaps the leftover energy he may deposit on the lawn could be saved and shipped to Annapolis and Washington where the politicians can find a way to put it to good use as this is a field in which they are experts.

READER FEEDBACK: Send your views to staff1@stmarystoday.com

The Men in Brown Suits
READER FEEDBACK: I did not know any political people showed up for the windmill dedication. I noticed in the story the top two photos shows one. The picture on the right shows him, he is standing on the left in a brown suit. I think it is Gov. o malley or pres. obama
Bert
Turn the Turbines and Hold the Slang
READER FEEDBACK: Although I love the article about the wind turbines and the exposure it gave to the backwards workings of our local government, I would ask that when you publish in the public forum you would refrain from using terms like “raghead”.
Calling someone from the mid east a raghead is equivilent to calling a black person a nigger.
I find it hard to believe St. Mary’s Today would want to blatantly insult people, and as someone who has been to the middle east several times I can tell you that most of them are just simple people of good will like most of us and not the gun toting, civillian killing, suicide bombers plastered all over the nightly news.
The avoidance of the term would have taken away nothing from the article, but would have allowed some of us to appreciate it even more. Thank you for your consideration of this matter.
JOHN JOHNSTON,
Lexington Park
(Editor’s Note: Thanks for your viewpoint. While you might be justified in not approving of the term "raghead", the word was not used by itself to refer to all Arabs but instead was used as an adjective "raghead oil barons of the middle east," describing the Arab oil cartel leaders, who, all wear various types of headgear, likely made not from rags but from silk.
Surely a lot of the average folks in the mid east, who enjoy few of the liberties that we do, are nice people who do not share in the oil fortunes, but the article did not refer to them so they should not take offense.
In any event, you will likely find many of our articles are full of slang which may from time to time irk you. In fact, this slang term inspired you to take pen to paper and express yourself, which shows that the article was successful in inspiring debate and for you to critique our presentation to the reader. While we don't agree with your objection for the reason stated above, we are glad you shared it with our readers.)