It may be late in the state process, but the Middletown Planning Board weighed in on the wind turbines on Jan. 8 and set an agenda item at its Feb. 12 meeting for residents to voice their concerns about wind turbines on the local horizon.
Board member Leon Amarant expressed concern that windmills would impact views of the city's beaches.
“[Should] “Is the Planning Board considering talking about what’s happening in our ocean?” he asked. “You see a new turbine every day. As you drive down, all you see are a few flashing lights. It changed the landscape of Middletown. And I don’t think anyone realized the impact these things would have visually.”
Amarant said he had a “visceral reaction to it and it was only getting worse.” He noted that other communities like Portsmouth have fought back.
Amarant's comments came two days after Councilman Dennis Turano raised similar issues with local lawmakers.
Planning Board Chairman Arthur Weber said he thought it might be a little late to formally protest what was already underway and approved by the federal government. However, Amarant said another project in the works, the Mayflower Project to run cables from South County through the Sakonnet River to Massachusetts, will also impact Middletown's waters.
“Where they have done this in other communities, it has caused significant disruption to those communities, through noise and through disturbing the riverbed,” he said.
Board member Mike Fenton disagreed, saying he could only see the windmills off Sachuest Point on a very clear day. “Visually, I don’t think it’s that terrible,” he said.
He said the cable up the Sakonnet River will primarily impact the Island Park area in Portsmouth.
However, board member Joseph Pierik echoed Amarant's observations.
“When I go home tonight, I'll sit at my dining room table, look out the window and see dozens of flashing red lights. It’s terrible,” he said. “And I think it negatively impacts the value of our properties in Middletown, especially people with water views. If they move the cable up the Sakonnet River, it won’t be a pretty thing.”
Assistant City Attorney Michael Monti recommended the board post this as an agenda item for its next meeting so the public can voice their concerns.