The lone windmill at McEvoy Ranch, the largest privately owned turbine in California at the time of its construction, has been dismantled. The 148-foot-tall Danish-made turbine was built in 2009 as a source of renewable energy on the west Petaluma olive ranch. It was decommissioned for eight months after lightning struck it in 2011, and it has stood still for the past five years.
“We decided to not reinvest in it since the technology is over 15 years old and the cost to rehabilitate the motors and blades is quite substantial,” spokeswoman Julia Luna said on behalf of the ranch management team, which declined to comment on the effectiveness of the turbine during its time in operation.
Though the windmill’s purpose was to save the ranch money, it would have taken 10 to 12 years to pay for itself—before considering the inflation of energy prices—according to documents from Sage Energy Consulting, which advised McEvoy on the implementation of the turbine. The company’s founder, David Williard, said the structure was never expected to perform at full capacity.
“Wind as a resource is very tricky,” he said. “It’s very contingent upon an exact location and many environmental factors. The turbine was not expected to run at its peak the entire time.”
Some neighbors and environmentalists were against the project from the start, calling it an example of “greenwashing,” decrying its impact on the rural character of the landscape, and pointing out its placement in an area that lacked the abundance of wind that sustains inland projects in places like Solano and Kern Counties.
The turbine, initially proposed to stand 246 feet tall and generate over 660 kilowatts of power, was rejected by the Marin County Planning Commission in a 6-1 vote. Concerned neighbors, ornithologists and anti-turbine activists spoke to commissioners about its potential adverse effects on noise and light pollution and the rural skyline.
Activists were also concerned about raptors getting killed by the turbine’s blades, but studies done by Point Blue Conservation Science and the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory concluded that negative impacts to raptor populations were unlikely, given that the large blades would move relatively slowly and raptors would not fly updraft in the direction of the turbine.
A wind study conducted by Sage had determined that the area would have adequate wind. At its peak, the turbine could produce 225 kilowatts from winds 25 to 50 miles per hour, enough to meet the electrical demands of one-third of the ranch, Mr. Williard said. However, according to wind maps provided by the California Energy Commission, average wind speeds on Red Hill Road rarely surpass 15 miles per hour. The windmill could only produce energy with wind speeds above eight miles per hour.
McEvoy Ranch ultimately reduced the height of the proposed structure and moved its location from the far windier east side of the ranch to the west side, where it faced Red Hill Road. When their turn came, the Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the project in 2005.
The structure became the largest privately owned wind turbine in the state and made Marin the first coastal county with an industrial-scale wind turbine. A much smaller windmill had been built at Nicasio’s Devil’s Gulch Ranch one year earlier that produces a fraction of the power.
Ms. Luna said the McEvoy turbine has been recycled and the ranch is considering newer, more reliable forms of renewable energy as it continues to work toward a goal of self-sufficiency. Much of the electrical infrastructure that was installed for the windmill could be connected to a solar array, she added.
This story was corrected on Oct. 26. Activists who spoke out at the Marin County Planning Commission hearing on the turbine were not organized into a group that later formed in response to another West Marin turbine project, the West Marin Sonoma Coastal Advocates.