A year after Meridian Energy's White Hill wind farm on the hills behind Mossburn was commissioned, local opinion about the turbines is divided, according to people's differing perspectives.
Perspective is proving to be a highly debated aspect of wind farm proposals, as was obvious from the Project Hayes wind farm Environment Court appeal hearing, which adjourned in Cromwell this week.
How the land might look with gigantic turning turbines is what matters to many of those objecting to the proposed installation on the lonely hilltops of the Lammermoor Range.
The proposal has attracted vociferous opposition from those who consider the look of the landscape more important than its energy-producing potential.
But, according to Southland District Mayor Frana Cardno, White Hill wind farm was never such a controversial project.
"The people of Southland supported it all the way through," she said. "And they still do."
The White Hill project is regarded as a textbook example by Meridian Energy's spokesman Alan Seay, because it was granted consent without going to the Environment Court.
Of the 99 submissions made on the application to Southland District Council, only nine were opposed to it.
Mrs Cardno said the process reflected the attitude of the local community. "We didn't have that much negativity and I never heard that. All I hear is positive and I think most people realise we have to get power from somewhere,"Mrs Cardno said.
Mrs Cardno said the 29 turbines, each 107m high, "blend in very well" with their surrounds.
"Even people who are a bit concerned find them attractive to look at. They also find they blend in with the environment very well - especially on a misty day like today," she said earlier this week."
She also maintained the site restoration by contractors had made it attractive and she could only say good things about Meridian Energy.
"They were very good. They came to see me and we got to consult with the community."
Consultation was important in alleviating people's concerns before the turbines were installed, she said.
Afterwards, Meridian organised an open day and allowed the locals to use it as a fund-raiser, which went down well with the community and raised tens of thousands of dollars, she added.
Despite objections on visual grounds about the Project Hayes development and calls from some quarters for smaller-sized wind farms, Ms Cardno said the number of turbines at White Hill was not an issue.
"I think 29 is acceptable. When you look, you can't see all 29 at once. I actually think they're unobtrusive."
She said the low-reflective colour of them makes the towers and turbines blend in with the clouds.
Mrs Cardno's perspective was backed up by the Mossburn Area Development Committee chairman Jim Guyton.
He said the wind farm had been a big boost to the area, providing more than $260,000 in direct funds when it was first set up and attracting another $60,000 from the open day for a community trust fund.
"I drive a bus past there every day during the tourist season and when I ask people what they think about them they say it looks pretty good."
But others were not so sure.
Mossburn sheep farmer Stan Jones said the view of the three turbine towers he could see outside his window was as offensive today as the day they were installed.
Along with fellow farmer James Duthie, Mr Jones was one of the nine objectors who lost their case to keep the view of the hills clear.
Mr Jones said people of Mossburn were not affected as much as he was, because he was closer to the turbines.
He had been farming his land just southwest of the White Hill site for 36 years and said he could never get them out of his sight.
"That's described as a significant land form and they've ruined it."
His view and perspective was shared by Mr Duthie, who said he had got used to the turbines but would still prefer they were not there.
"Our house and whole farm looks straight at them. We built a new house 12 to 15 years ago for the view. Now it's full of windmills. I wish someone had told us and we'd have built somewhere else.
"Wherever you are on the farm, you can see them."
A criticism of the process that both men shard was the photo simulation that was presented at the consent hearing.
Both said it misrepresented the reality they were now looking at, reflecting some of the debate about evidence presented in other wind farm resource consent applications.
It was also a major criticism levelled at Meridian by Dunedin-based Richard Reeve, vociferous wind farm opponent and media liaison person for Save Central.
Mr Reeve's opposition to wind farm projects, including White Hill when it was being developed, was no secret, as expressed in a strongly-worded opinion piece in the Otago Daily Times.
He said Save Central was an umbrella organisation committed to preservation of landscape values of the South Island.
While he said fewer turbines and towers would have been more acceptable than the 29 installed at White Hill, which represented a highly-significant human factor that the Northern Southland landscape would have been better without.
In response to those who perceived the turbines as some kind of benign kinetic sculpture in the landscape, Mr Reeve asked if 10,000 Len Lye sculptures on the landscape would be art.
Instead, he said, it would be vandalism.
In addition to the visual impact on landscape, he said the earthworks associated with the site that could not be seen from the road were an unacceptable part of wind farm developments in what could be ecologically fragile, albeit windy, sites.
He predicted that rapidly-developing renewable technologies would all-too-soon make wind farms outdated.
Mr Reeve questioned the viability and sustainability of the White Hill site, citing windless times and transmission losses from sites such as the Southland one to where the electricity was needed. The answer he said was smaller wind farms, near areas of demand.
But Mr Seay disagreed. "I've just been to Germany and seen examples of small, local wind farms scattered all over the landscape.
"They're everywhere. It's far better for this country to locate then in some sites and away from other areas."
Unlike Germany, he said, New Zealand was lucky to have the capacity to locate wind farms in areas of the landscape where they could not be seen, such as Southland and Central Otago.
"Otherwise, you'd have them everywhere."
He dismissed Mr Reeve's perceptions about the impacts of wind farms as poetic notions that did not provide practical answers for energy needs.
White Hill, he said, was not only a textbook example of a wind farm development attracting community support, but had also performed in line with expectations, making a valid contribution to Southland's energy needs.
He conceded there were some down days when White Hill could not generate - as expected.
However, he added, there were no impending plans for additional turbines on the site.
"It may happen one day, but there are other sites elsewhere we'd consider doing before that."
Achieving another wind farm site in any location might prove more difficult than Mr Seay and Meridian Energy would like, as Environment Court wrangles to date have shown.
An alternative, he said, could well be the development of some kind of national policy statement under the umbrella of the Resource Management Act - something that Mr Reeve also suggests might help navigate the way forward on the wind farm debate.
Meanwhile, the people of Mossburn keep on with life, without much of a second glance at their turbine skyline.
As Mossburn Motors owner Graeme Hellewell put it: "We know they're there, but we don't notice them that much. I wouldn't say people don't care, but they realise we've got to get the power from somewhere."
