Wind turbines’ tourism impact explored

Turbines spinning in the wind miles off the Rhode Island coast have the potential to be harmful to tourism, Rhode Island’s second-largest industry, according to a draft report released Oct. 30 by the R.I. Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC).
But the report, authored by two University of Rhode Island researchers, says the negative impacts would likely be minimal or temporary in most cases and also cites evidence wind farms can have the opposite effect, boosting tourism. A 2007 University of Delaware study found that 65.8 percent of surveyed out-of-state tourists were likely to visit a beach in order to see a wind farm offshore, and 44.5 percent were likely to pay to take a boat tour of an offshore wind facility.
The report is slated to be a piece of the SAMP that the CRMC is expected to review and adopt early next year.
The draft report comes as New Jersey-based Deepwater Wind plans a wind farm three miles off the coast of Block Island to be followed by another, larger, farm 15 miles off the mainland. While Deepwater executives say the larger farm will be barely visible, if at all, from the mainland, the smaller farm will be at the front door of Block Island, a community that depends on tourism.
The draft chapter recommends the CRMC adopt a policy that recognizes the state waters surrounding Block Island are key to recreational activities, including casual boating, sailboat races and other marine events. It says the same for the waters off Brenton Point in Newport.
The policy, if adopted, would allow the CRMC to “suitably modify activities that detract from these uses” if the council found there would be a significant impact, which is not defined in the report.
Along with the new policies, the draft suggests new standards, which would include recommendations to a wind farm developer that it perform systematic observations of recreational boating activities in the proposed development area and share that data with the CRMC.
Deepwater Wind Chief Development Officer Paul Rich said the company is already conducting aerial surveys for its marine-mammal studies and anticipated using those to also track recreational activities on the water. Deepwater, Rich said, found the proposed chapter and its findings “reasonable” and had no immediate plans to object to the council adopting the draft. And to head off any potential opposition from the tourism sector, Rich has been meeting with sailing clubs along the upper East Coast.
One area that has raised little opposition, perhaps surprisingly, has been Block Island. Block Island Tourism Council Executive Director Jessica Willi said no business owner has expressed concern to her about a wind farm scaring away customers.
“I think it’s very much on people’s radar but not from a tourism standpoint, more [in terms of] what we are going to get out of it,” Willi said.
Plans for the wind farm include an electric cable linking the island to the mainland grid that holds the promise to deliver cheaper electricity to an island dependent on pricy diesel generators. That could lower electric bills for businesses, but some are concerned about the cost of paying for the cable, Willi said. That issue, not tourism, has taken center stage.
“Personally I can’t imagine somebody won’t come here because there’s a three-mile-away, offshore wind farm in view, but that’s just me,” she said.
Perhaps, Willi speculated, the farm could even draw tourists. That’s the view of Mark Brodeur, director of tourism for the R.I. Economic Development Corporation.
“We are excited about the prospects of promoting a unique tourist experience around Rhode Island’s offshore wind farm to visitors,” he said in an e-mail. “Renewable energies are important to consumers and we believe there will be a heightened interest in understanding this emerging … technology. Rhode Island already offers many attractions to tourists and by increasing our product we have an opportunity to reach another consumer segment.”
The authors of the proposed chapter interviewed Brodeur and others to gain a sense of the impact of a wind farm on tourism. And last week the CRMC hosted a stakeholder meeting to discuss the chapters. Rich said the various meetings he has held on the issue simply mark “the start of a long conversation.” •