The project manager of a wind turbine proposal tried again last week to create a favorable breeze before the Planning and Zoning Commission.
In an eight-page response to the panel’s inquiries from two previous hearings, Optiwind project manager Matthew Speck defended proposed regulations from the Torrington-based company.
Optiwind has been retained by Shelton-based MBI Inc. to possibly install new kinds of wind turbines at its Parrott Drive plant.
But the proposal’s future hangs in the breeze as the panel closed the public hearing Tuesday and voted to draft a decision for discussion at its next meeting Aug. 10.
“There really is a very large world-wide wind turbine market,” Speck said.
About 40 states in the country, including Connecticut, have the resources to generate power with wind, Speck said.
But, he added, ​“Connecticut is at the bottom as far as implementation.”
He cited Massachusetts’ efforts to harvest the wind using equipment as tall as 200 to 300 feet that ​“fit closely in the landscape,” responding to neighbors’ concerns that turbines would tower over their homes, marring the view and creating health and safety hazards. The turbines look different from the traditional wind mill.
Board Secretary Virginia Harger posed the only question Tuesday night, asking for clarification on a statistic.
Speck said as of December 2009, the world had generated 157,889 megawatts of electricity from harvesting wind.
“It is enough to power all of Italy,” he said, adding that there are thousands of commercially-used turbines and 8,000 to 9,000 small ones in the United States.
Electric companies today are eager to embrace wind technologies because coal-fired plants are reaching the end of their useful lives and cost more to build, Speck said.
A major board concern was that allowing wind turbines to be built in light industrial zoned areas without regulations would leave the commission with little discretion when unwanted applications come before it.
Two couples, Dan and Mary Sesenko and John and Ingrid Waters, attended the latest meeting but did not speak. Outside of the meeting, they said they had already voiced their objections.
“It does not belong in an LIP zone,” Ingrid Waters said. ​“It’s right on top of our property.”
She added that while the turbines are in use in Europe, they are placed about two miles away from residential areas, not as close as they could be in Shelton. At close range, the magnetic field and low frequency vibrations can cause health problems, including the inner ear, she said.
The turbine tower could be 200 feet tall and 80 feet wide, and might be unstable because the area neighbors’ property is wetlands, the neighbors said.
Also, the neighbors would not benefit from the electricity, John Waters added.
The board next meets at 7 p.m. Aug. 10 in City Hall.