The Changing Skyline of Wareham

So, we've known for quite some time that there were going to more wind towers going in, north of where we had already been watching them and admiring them for several years. We hadn't realized exactly where they'd be. For quite a while now, we've received the occasional piece of informational mail, telling us about upcoming meetings, or showing grid maps for the Melancthon Wind Project. And there's been mention of Phase the next, and the one after. But the maps are vague, and the meetings at awkward times or locations.

Last fall a new series of towers looked to be going in somewhat south of us. At least we assumed that to be the case. Two fields, along a stretch of back road that I drive, appeared to be being cleared in some kind of large gravel parking lot, or too-wide laneway. Darrell eventually pronounced them to be accessways for wind tower sites. And yes, this spring they started working towards erecting the towers. At the same time men came and started doing odd roadwork at the end of our road. Darrell inquired, and discovered they were temporarily widening the intersection so that the sections of tower could be moved around corners. All of a sudden, any number of hints of road and ditch work seemed suspicious.

I tried to find some information online, and kept coming up with dead ends. An eventual news story finally led to info about the original power authority building the Melancthon Wind Farm being sold to some other power authority, and then the chase began. Eventually I tracked down current info; the trick is that if you don't know the name of the project, or the name of the company, it makes it very hard to track down on the internet. (Well, quickly, anyway.) It's entirely possible that there will be other projects going in to the north and northwest of us, but thus far I haven't found the information. Anyway, the 'local' one has a couple of sections, the bit below us, which I'd been driving by, another section immediately south of us, which also includes one down our road, and a third phase, which runs up the county road at the end of ours. All are part of the Plateau Wind Farm. When I found that website, I also found a handful of interesting documents. Some show tower placement, and set back info. Others contain interesting info on the area.

 And once they started erecting the towers, it's happened very quickly. There was a long stretch of huge bits of towers arriving at the sites, and I kept passing long involved transport vehicles carrying the mammoth sections. Road corners have all been chewed up and widened; some roads have had their pavement temporarily stolen; stretches of road have been blocked when the people moving the equipment have miscalculated the required space anyway.
 On one trip down to the Theatre, I passed about four or five different trucks all carrying a single propellor or vane for the wind towers. On the ground, on the back of a truck, one gets the sense of size. Once the towers are up they seem delicate and tall and airy.

 But I'm realizing just how much my eye is being deceived by the scale. The grouping of three towards the end of out road, and just to the north, are really only two towers on our side of the county road, and one on the other, and feel almost like they're only a field or two away, when I know from having to walk back down our road on one or another 'sad car day', that it's a much greater distance than that!

 We really can't see them well from in our house. I can just make out the vanes of one or two from the kitchen window, though early morning sun makes the towers glint bright white, and easier to find. I think any of the others will really be too far away, or obscured by trees or the natural roll of the land.

 I'll be interested to see what happens when they turn them on; if we'll notice them any more than we do now.
 But certainly none of our friends will ever need to fear not finding our place with these new and very noticeable landmarks.