Once upon a time in Ohio, there were big Green dreams afloat.

It all really got rolling back in 2012, when the feds wrote a honkin’ yuge check to the Lake Erire Development Corporation (LEEDCO) to see if they could pull off a pie-in-the-sky fresh water windfarm that would be able to survive when the winds of November came early, as well as when ice shuts the lake down.

That’s a tall order.

In December 2012, Lake Erie Development Corporation (LEEDCo) received a $40 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy as 1 of 7 demonstration projects for the first phase of competition. With this grant money, LEEDCo launched additional research projects to assess biological risks to wildlife and other environmental and ecological risks as well as a public support campaign to gauge Ohioans’ interest in investing in the project and in buying wind power.

You see the kind of money they hand out for these “projects,” before there’s ever even a survey boat in the water. Is it any wonder we are awash in worthless, inefficient Green grift?

Opponents warned Icebreaker would be a $300M Block Island-style disaster in a best case scenario.

By the by, the grant would eventually reach $50M.

They spent the first few years gathering signatures of residents in the proposed service area who pledged to use the electricity generated, and pinky swore that the “small” additional cost wouldn’t upset them. All kumbaya sort of posturing. Then they got the regional Cuyahoga power authority to buy into purchasing whatever was generated from the 6-9 proposed turbines.

Environmental studies and impacts were done in fits and starts, but never completed satisfactorily. In 2014, the chairman of the Ohio Power Siting Board (OPSB) had identified a list of 14 required submissions (studies, etc) that had not been undertaken, properly completed, omissions of others, or ones riddled with errors or biases not rectified even years later.

By 2017, proponents of the windfarm were pushing ahead negotiating consulting contracts with European wind companies and massaging Department of Energy approvals, while ignoring and essentially bulldozing the inconvenient and increasingly vocal locals.

…Objections have been reaching the OPSB regularly now for years. Despite the former Chairman Todd Snitchler’s formidable list of omissions, errors and evasions in process by LEEDCo (now FILE number: 16-1871 EL-BGN), a Draft EA to the DOE has been submitted via “Icebreaker Windpower,” consulting now with Norway’s Fred Olsen Renewables. Prior OPSB objections included ice throw, ecological considerations, noise, lack of appropriate technical data, as well as “contradictions, biases, omissions, and minimal assessments.”

The wind advocates were feeling their oats, and why not? Opposition might be mounting, but the wind types even had the Sierra Club behind them (Are we starting to notice how often this group is on the wrong side?), so why worry? This thing was happening.

…By 2016, an engineering consultant hired to analyze the lakebed, confidently told cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer that Icebreaker had evolved from something that “could happen” to something that “will happen.”

That same year, LEEDCo began working with Fred. Olsen, a Norwegian wind energy developer. The future for wind power in Lake Erie looked bright.

Then…a glitch. They got their thumbs up, but it came in a mitten. Sure they could put their turbines out in the lake, the new chair of the OPSB, Sam Randazzo said, but the blades had to be “feathered” – or stopped – at night for nine months out of the year to protect waterfowl, raptors, and bats. LEEDCO went ballistic, calling it a “poison pill.”

…The siting board eventually granted Icebreaker a permit in 2020 but with a provision that prevented the turbines from operating at night between March 1 and Nov. 1 for nine months of the year to limit the risk to birds and bats.

…LEEDCo objected, saying such a restriction would make the project economically unworkable. The restriction was reversed later in the year after 32 Northeast Ohio lawmakers complained in a letter to Randazzo that the board’s action was unlawful.

But it was all starting to fall apart on them. Financial backing was becoming a problem…because they couldn’t get any and the DOE wasn’t promising any more grant money. Lawsuits from residents were springing up, creating uncertainty while costing both time and money. A “tiny” surcharge on utility bills to help pay for the boondoggle was crushed by Republicans in the Ohio legislature. By the time they caught a break last year – with a state supreme court ruling that they’d met the environmental requirements to proceed – there wasn’t anyone left standing around to assure them the financial backing to start putting those abominations in the water.

Worse, it’s very expensive right now to do any of that.

So they won’t be doing ANY of that to Lake Erie.

End of the line: Icebreaker Wind, North America's first freshwater #WindFarm in Lake Erie, is officially canceled due to concerns about harm to bird life amid other lawsuits. Icebreaker was envisioned as a test to see if #turbines could withstand the rigors of a frozen lake. https://t.co/u03S9ryT2E

— SaveLBI (@saveLBIorg) December 19, 2023

And what monies are left have to go back to the federal Green grift kitty…

…$50 million promised with completion of target objectives; not met, $37 million being returned to DOE

…because, after all those years, they couldn’t get it together.

…William Friedman, president and CEO of the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority and board member of the Lake Erie Energy Development Corporation, said he is not optimistic.

“(The) Department of Energy is in the process of terminating the grant and it’s technically a mutual termination between LEEDCo and the Department of Energy,” Friedman explained. “LEEDCo is not able to complete the rest of the milestones in compliance with the grant, so there really is no choice here.”

Aw…you hate to see it.

Just kidding.

It’s like a big, fat old Christmas present to the lake.

You love to see it.