When last we left off the West Michigan Wind Farm saga we were approaching 3000 members in our Facebook group, we managed to nab a front page article about our efforts, and a regional television personality had just interviewed me on live radio.
A couple days later, while I was making a milk sippy for my littlest boy, I got a phone call from the President of a group in Grand Rapids. He said somebody gave him my name, they had taken a shining to our work to promote wind power in West Michigan, and his group was able to help us out. We scheduled a meeting.
Phew.
It's been a wild couple of weeks.
A brief re-cap...
Company presents plans for a 1000 MW offshore windfarm north of Muskegon, Michigan (1400 platform manufacturing and installation jobs for 5 years, 200 permanent jobs, plus city revenue) -->
People organize against the offshore wind farm and get a lot of publicity (wealthy land owners from around the country who own lakefront property band together and hire a lobbyist, and a PR firm to kill the project...a state representative proposed a moratorium on all offshore construction) -->
I start a Facebook group on a whim in support of the farm and it explodes, is approaching 3600 members -->
People start taking us seriously and interviewing us...
...and then this guy called me and asked to meet so his group could offer us help.
We had felt alone in this endeavor until two days ago. There are six of us working on this project. We've been sort of flailing around, trying to figure out what we're going to do...how we're going to do it. If it's even worth doing...but those 1400 jobs are just too important to just let go without a fight.
Two days ago we met with three men and it was as though they handed us a map of a sprawling building with a big red dot saying "YOU ARE HERE." The three men, one appointed by the Governor to his post, had been meeting for months trying to establish rules and regulations to help Michigan meet its goal of 10% renewable energy.
In 2008, the State adopted a law requiring that 10% of the power in the grid come from renewable energy by 2015. And it's not unlikely that Federal requirements will up the ante even further. Wind is going to be the dominant part of that mix in Michigan.
The wind farms are coming.
And that's what we learned.
It's not a matter of if. It's not even a matter of when. It's a matter of how.
What do these guys need our help for? To get people ready for the change.
Because there is a ton of mis-information out there: about wind power, about safety, about state regulations...and wind farms are about to start popping up all over the place in the next couple years. It's going to be a damn mess in terms of public outcry.
So our group has a direction, it seems. We're going to be getting people up to speed with and comfortable with the idea of wind farms. We have a lot of information to get out there.
This is going to be fun.