Windpower

by Toni Locke

Have you ever considered harnessing that steady Pacific breeze to create your own energy source? Metro readers who are struggling with household bills would give anything to get out of the clutches of private, for-profit, "public" utilities and bumbling state deregulators. How about installing your own windmill?

That's what Joe McElroy of Maple Avenue did to meet the threat of a bad drought season about thirty years ago. From Heather Farms in Walnut Creek, he acquired a defunct windmill. He spent three years rehabilitating it on the original base and got it up and running. He then proceeded to dig several wells, all with hand labor. When he stopped at a depth of 37 feet, he told neighbors he'd have gone on, but he wasn't equipped to haul the stuff out at a greater depth. The wells filled. Joe plumbed the water to flush toilets and do laundry in the house. The windmill drove the pumps. He built and stocked a large fish tank in the back yard as a food source. Eventually, East Bay M.U.D. caught up with him.

The windmill went on catching the prevailing wind, powering the pumps. I and many others will recall voting at the McElroys when they ran a basement polling place in the '80s. Some years later, after self-sufficient Joe had been living alone into his nineties, neighbors found him dead, seated peacefully at his kitchen table.

"The windmill will stay here as a neighborhood landmark," declares Max Velez, current owner. "I've considered a wind turbine, but have to get the pump fixed." The Velez children (Atticus attends Oakland Tech, Maya goes to Bret Harte Middle School) love their windmill. The youngest entertains friends in a tree house high up in the structure. Joe McElroy must be smiling.

This story came to the Metro from David Mycklebust of the Nordic Tree Company, who lives in the vicinity of the windmill.