University of Delaware Researcher Says "Place Attachment" Prompts Backlash Against Wind Farm Development
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
By: Patty Dineen

Muskegan Chronicle - Dave Alexander

Muskegan Chronicle: 7/15/10 University of Delaware researcher says 'place attachment' prompts backlash against wind farm development

Dave Alexander | Muskegon Chronicle

WEST MICHIGAN -- When it comes to offshore wind farms, they pretty much love them off the coast of Delaware but hate them off the coast of Cape Cod.

That is the conclusion of a study by a specialist on public perception of offshore wind turbines.

University of Delaware associate professor of marine policy and legal studies Jeremy Firestone spoke recently to a Grand Valley State University research team studying wind industry developments in West Michigan.

Strong opposition to the Cape Wind project off the shores of Massachusetts in Nantucket Sound was due to what Firestone describes "place attachment."

Meanwhile, the lack of opposition off the Atlantic shores of Delaware is due to a choice that that state's residents face. The fact they had to support an offshore wind farm or a new coal power plant drove support of wind turbines, Firestone said.

No such choice was found with Cape Wind in Nantucket Sound. Like the Scandia Offshore Wind projects proposed off the shore from Pentwater and Grand Haven in Lake Michigan, the choice at Cape Cod has been wind farm or no wind farm. And a majority of Cape Cod residents oppose the decade-old plan, Firestone's research shows.

"My hunch is that the reaction to offshore wind in the Great Lakes is somewhere in between (Cape Cod and Delaware)," Firestone told the GVSU research team. "But in the Great Lakes, Michigan's 'place attachment' is likely more extreme than other states in the region."

Firestone has begun initial discussions with the Michigan Great Lakes Offshore Wind Council -- a governor-appointed advisory group -- that could lead to similar research of public perceptions in Michigan.

"I am from Michigan, and I know how people feel about the lakes ... it's the state's identity," said Firestone, a graduate of the University of Michigan with a degree in molecular biology and law.

Firestone also has a doctorate in public policy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, earned after working in the Michigan Attorney General's Office on permitting of hydroelectric plants. He has been teaching public policy courses on offshore wind developments and researching public opinion on the subject since 2003 through the University of Delaware's College of Earth, Ocean and Environment.

Firestone and his research colleagues began surveying public opinion on the Cape Wind project in 2004. He quickly learned that opposition to offshore wind farms is not a classic "not in my backyard" reaction.

Instead, opposition mainly to the visual impact of turbines seen from land or from boats causes a psychological reaction known as "place attachment." Basically, it is an emotional attachment to surroundings that are familiar.

Any "disruption" of those surroundings that people see as the essence of a specific location creates a negative backlash. Opponents who live or play along the shorelines find wind farms threatening the very essence of themselves and their communities, Firestone said.

Place attachment is greater in protected bays like Nantucket Sound than on the open ocean like off the coast of Delaware, the researcher said. Firestone said he'd guess that the place attachment feelings for Lake Michigan would be somewhere between a protected bay and the open ocean.

Firestone said his research over the years has found there is a lot of misinformation and faulty interpretation in the offshore wind debate.

"People don't always understand the comparative environmental impacts," said Firestone, an avowed supporter of the need for offshore wind as a future energy source for the United States. He maintains that opponents of wind farms sometimes dismiss the effects of a coal-powered plant on wildlife and the overall environment.

Firestone also said that the experience in Europe where offshore wind farms have been operating for a decade shows that opposition eases after people actually see the turbines offshore and get used to the look.

"Any simulation makes them look much more industrial than they are," Firestone said. "Out on the water, they look other-worldly.

"I think there will be more objection putting them on land than on water," he said. "There's more 'place attachment' where we live. On the water, they are quite far away."

E-mail Dave Alexander: dalexander@muskegonchronicle.com