Page 32 April 18, 2014
DAN’S PAPERS
danspapers.com
Windmill (Cont’d from previous page) Island, four in East Hampton, one in Amagansett, one in Bridgehampton, one in Southampton, one on Shelter Island, one in Wainscott, and one in Water Mill, all of them built between 1770 and 1830, a half-century span when the residents here, on the very leading edge of environmental awareness, did their best to make a situation where the energy they consumed equaled the energy produced. Their desire was to harness the wind and create no environmental damage whatsoever, instead of what they correctly felt was the wasteful consumption of consumables such as, over the years, whale blubber, kerosene, wood fires, coal, oil, shale and natural gas, which, as we know, pollute the planet. Granted, the windmill efforts made during that 60-year period (known today as the East End Spring—like the Arab Spring) were not very effective. But what could you expect? This was long before the invention of the telephone, the light bulb, the automobile, washing machine, airplane, hula-hoop or the internet. These early experimental efforts did leave us with a legacy, though. All these windmills still stand. It had been the hope, those early pioneers felt, that improvements in the efficiency of these windmills would one day bring a time when all energy problems would be solved with the engines of our wind power and the improvements made could be given away and duplicated elsewhere around the country. But that did not happen. Over the past 200 years, our governments—village, town, county, state and federal—have poured thousands of
It’s time to put an end to this scandalous waste of taxpayers’ money here on the East End. Much of this money spent accomplishes nothing. dollars, even millions and billions and trillions of untold dollars, to restore, rebuild and improve these windmills so they can do the job. But it has all been just a complete waste of money. Two years ago, East Hampton Village spent nearly a $100,000 to get the Hook Mill on the Town Green to turn out power. Before that, tens of thousands of dollars were spent in Bridgehampton trying to get the Beebe Mill to produce power. But no. It was a complete waste of money. It’s a scandal. Who benefits from these clumsy and futile attempts to get these beautiful windmills operational? It’s been said that the tourists like to take pictures of them, sitting there still and inert and doing nothing, so that is good for the economy. But when more of these tourists come out to take these pictures, burning gasoline in their cars, oil and natural gas in their homes and coal in their office buildings, it just adds to the environmental pickle we find ourselves in today. Why have we not hired scientists and engineers to guide this work, to apply their inventiveness and new ideas to the task at hand? We haven’t done that. Instead, in every
case, we hire “restorers” who haven’t a clue on how to make these things work. All they know to do is how to get the windmills repaired to the way they were before when they didn’t work. What an utter waste of time and money. It might have been money well spent if these funds had been used to at least attempt to provide new experimental ways to harness the wind. I read in The New York Times recently that one scientific group somewhere in the country is sending up giant weather balloons with paddles on them, held fast to the ground with long ropes, so the wind can turn the paddle blades way up there to create the power. It’s time to put an end to this scandalous waste of taxpayers’ money here on the East End. I’m told that, as another poke in the eye, much of this money is spent to accomplish nothing more than to grind down an occasional husk of corn into flour so the workmen can sit around, snack and drink on their frequent coffee breaks, lunch hours and poker sessions while on the job. We’ve landed on the moon, built bridges across the Hudson River, gotten airplanes to fly 2,000 miles an hour, created iPhones and television and atomic bombs, and not one single kilowatt of energy in all this time from our windmills. It’s long past time to begin investigating the wasteful bureaucratic mess that has spawned this two-century-long boondoggle and put an end to it once and for all. Remember, you read it first in Dan’s Papers.