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American Wind Week
/in Activist News Roundup /by Chris PalmerAmerican Wind Week – Tour of EDPR’s Rattlesnake Road & Wheat Field Wind Farms, August 2019
By Jane Stackhouse
American Wind Week brought members of 350PDX and Women of Renewable Industries and Sustainable Energy (WRISE) together for a tour of EDP Renewables’ (EDPR) Rattlesnake Road and Wheat Field wind farms in Arlington Oregon. 350PDX member Virginia Wiseman arranged for the tour. It met all of our needs: transportation, lunch, and interesting speakers.
The first thing I learned is they are wind turbines, not wind mills. Wind mills grind grain or move water while wind turbines create clean power. Operations Manager Nick Van Hollebeke showed us the monitoring system and provided details about the farms. The status of each turbine, current and projected wind conditions, and power being generated are monitored from terminals in the office.
Rattlesnake Road generates 102.9 MW (enough to power 27,000 homes). Wheat Field generates 96.6 MW (powers over 25,000 homes) and the owner still raises a wheat crop on the land. Together the farms have 95 Suzlon 2.1 MW turbines. There are 20 employees on the site to monitor and maintain the turbines. After a safety training EDPR Lead Technician Jarod Wizner and Nick took
us on a tour.
These turbines are huge, about 250 feet high. (We did not get to climb the access ladder inside the tower. Special equipment, permission, and good physical condition are required.) Jarod explained that the blades turn at 15 revolutions per minute. The rotor turns gears with a 118:1 ratio so the 15 rpm become 1800 rpm and generates 2.1 MW at its maximum output. This power runs on underground cable through a transformer at the base, to a substation. There it is amplified to 230 kV (kilovolts) and sent via overhead wires into the grid.
Jarod also described several features of the turbines. The gears and generator are inside the nacelle. The technicians climb an interior ladder using safety gear to work inside and on top of the nacelle.
The wind vane, anemometer and controller atop the nacelle automatically keep the blades turned into the wind and can shut the turbine off if the wind is too strong.
As we watched the blades create energy I was aware of the sound of the wind but not the sound of the rotors until someone commented on how quiet they are. The blade tips are traveling at 150 mph and yet make only a soft swishing sound as they pass. At that rotation speed, we all wanted to know about the danger to birds and bats.
Hayley Mallen is EDPR’s Senior Environmental Associate. She described the studies that the wind farms conduct in cooperation with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to measure impact on birds, bats, and other wildlife. (Studies show that house cats allowed to roam outdoors kill more birds than wind turbines.) One preventive measure is to ensure that any dead ground animals are immediately removed so flying carrion eaters are not attracted to the area. Jarod says he sees occasional bird deaths due to birds nesting on the poles and getting into the wires but not by the wind turbines themselves.
Our lunch time speakers talked about how the wind industry has been good for Gilliam County. This area has always had nearly constant wind. These two farms were built between 2008 and 2009. The land is leased from two owners, who still raise hay and wheat crops on the land. The construction jobs brought employment and revenue to local businesses because of the construction firm’s buy-local policy. The long-term maintenance jobs meant local people with mechanical and electrical aptitude could get good paying jobs (median pay is $54,000/year). Over the past ten years, the initial investment of about $659 million has resulted in about $1.9 billion spent within the state of Oregon, a total of $25.6 million in cumulative payments to local governments, and $23 million paid to local landowners. Harnessing the power of the wind has been good for the Gilliam County economy and provides clean electricity to the entire State.
American Wind Week will be back next year. I hope many of you will have the opportunity to join a tour and see clean energy generation up close. Thanks to Virginia Wiseman and all the staff at EDPR for arranging this tour.
Jane Stackhouse
350PDX NE Member
Nick Van Hollebeke and Jarod Wizner prepare us for a tour of Rattlesnake Road and Wheat Field wind farm with safety training. August 8, 2019.
Not here, not anywhere: a recap of the Stop Zenith Vigil
/in Fossil Fuel Resistence /by Dineen O'RourkeAs part of the Climate Strike Week of Action, our community hosted the Stop Zenith Vigil for 60 continual hours from Tuesday, September 24 at 7:00 AM to Thursday September 26 at 7:00 PM. It was a beautiful, moving, and strategically important time. About 150 people participated in the Vigil during those 3 days, many holding shifts late into the night or before sunrise very early in the morning. It was a time of deep learning about ourselves, our community members, the NW Industrial district, and about the movement of oil trains at the Zenith facility.
In the middle of the 60 hours, we held a Night of Illumination, where we heard from tribal elders, musicians, community leaders, and vigil participants about the necessity of stopping the Zenith tar sands facility and returning the land to its original habitat. Click here to view moving photos of this event from the Oregonian.
In the news…
Demonstrators Hold 60-Hour Vigil at Zenith Energy in NW Portland – The Oregonian
Portland Activists Won’t Let City Council Forget About Zenith – Portland Mercury
In their own words: Direct quotes from the Vigil’s guest book
Thank you.
Update in regards the Change of Color petition
/in Announcements /by WongWe have been asked by the teenagers who were affected by police brutality during the Climate Strike on Friday, September 20th, to pull back on public displays of support, including the Color of Change petition. Initially, they supported the petition and appreciate all the community support, however, at this time they have decided they would like privacy, time, and space to heal and understand what they need. They are asking for any witnesses of the violence to please contact us, 350PDX at info@350pdx.org or Misha at misha@350pdx.org.
The students and their families are concerned about the videos circulating of the police brutality. In our original statement we provided the article, “How Videos of Police Brutality Traumatize African Americans and Undermine the Search for Justice.” We ask our supporters to read this article, consider the ways racialized trauma impacts people of color, and reconsider before sharing violent imagery of police brutality against people of color. We understand the intention of informing the public, but please consider the impact on people of color.
Thank you all for your support and attention to this issue. We will not be posting publicly about what we are doing to support the students and their families until given express consent. However, we are working diligently to make sure that any needs they have, including legal, financial and emotional support, are met through any connections or resources we may have.
350PDX Staff
350PDX condemns police brutality and white supremacy in all its forms.
/in Announcements /by Anissa350PDX is proud of the work we did to build an inclusive and just Climate Strike Rally and Festival. However, we live in a judicial system that targets and harms black and brown bodies, and 350PDX took on the responsibility of creating a safe and free environment for the youth to exercise their rights in, that included securing permits for the rally, march, and festival. Still, we know that with permits comes police presence, and for many in our community, the presence of police creates neither a safe nor a free environment.
Knowing this, we worked to minimize the presence of police and other types of uniformed responders. With the community in mind, we created a policy that on the festival grounds, police and first responders would only be allowed to enter the event when called in response to an emergency. Volunteer staff were instructed to notify attendees before the arrival of police and first responders, to accompany them at all times to limit contact between them and the community, and had identified safer spaces for community members to gather if they did not feel comfortable being near police and first responders. In accordance with this policy, volunteers did turn away three police officers that had entered the festival grounds without invitation or permission.
We sincerely apologize to our black and brown community members who were unsafe or felt unsafe at the Climate Strike Rally. Right now, we are currently working behind the scenes to support the students and their families who were targeted by police violence at the Strike on Friday, September 20. We are working to provide the type of support that is desired by these students and their families, such as legal and financial support. We encourage the rest of the community to join us in offering this support and we will broadcast to the community ways to do so when and if it’s appropriate.
We know that we can always do more to counter white supremacy in our work, and limit the risks that black and brown people experience at the hands of police. We want to share this resource about “How Videos of Police Brutality Traumatize African Americans and Undermine the Search for Justice,” as we recognize that many videos have been shared of the incident on Friday. We understand this is coming from a genuine place of concern for these students’ safety. “Yet because the images of police violence are so pervasive, they inflict a unique harm on viewers, particularly African Americans, who see themselves and those they love in these fatal encounters. This recognition becomes a form of violence in and of itself—and even more so when justice is denied.”
With that in mind, 350PDX pledges to do the following at any upcoming action we hold:
We know that our community requires us to be accountable. We are working hard to ensure that any actions of police brutality are interrupted, that police are held accountable for their violence, and that white supremacy is dismantled in our own organizing.
In solidarity with black and brown people,
350PDX Staff