The windmill at the Evans house at the corner of Corn Neck and West Beach roads, which caused great controversy when it went up and another stir when it fell down two years ago, was causing new consternation during the past stormy weekend.

Building Official Marc Tillson said he received calls from more than half-a-dozen neighbors, near and not so near, about the noise the windmill was making during the high winds of the weekend and on Monday, Nov. 18. "Some of the complaints came from almost three-quarters of a mile away," he said. "One message came in at 4:30 a.m. from someone who couldn't sleep."

Tillson went to listen and found, like the neighbors, an annoying pattern. The windmill would run with its normal whispering sound for a brief period, then fall into a period of intense vibration that produced a loud thrum-thrum-thrum sound not unlike that of a helicopter.

"I think the device that produces power was alternately under load and then free-wheeling," he said. He said that Henry duPont of Offshore Services, who had installed the windmill, told him one of the problems was the way the power was being received into the Block Island Power Company distribution system.

"All I know is that I haven't had complaints about the other windmills on the island," Tillson said. It was the third time this fall he's received a round of complaints about that sound, Tillson said, and he was studying the zoning ordinance under which the windmill was erected. "It says I can order it shut down if not fully maintained," he noted.

At the Robison home across the street, a "different sound" has been noted, Nancy Robison said. "New blades were put on around Memorial Day and it was pretty quiet all summer, but this fall we've had this really loud noise."

"There's no question that that windmill is a disaster," said Steve Robison. "Everybody knows it and no one knows what to do about it. It's been going on for 21¼2 years."

First Warden Martha Ball lives on the eastern edge of the island off Mansion Road, far from the windmill site. Yet on Monday she heard the jarring sound of the windmill, blown eastward by a strong west wind, so clearly that she spent the day calling sources like the manufacturer and the coordinator of the Department of Energy alternative energy program in Colorado. "I wasn't the first; it was evident that other neighbors have been calling," she said.

The irony, Ball noted, is that "as I understand it, when it makes sounds like that it's not producing anything but noise."

When the Evans windmill was erected in August 2000, it was a surprise because there was no town policy in place to ensure neighborhood input. Soon after, a proposal to erect a similar windmill at the old Coast Guard station brought a crowd to a hearing and resulted in a moratorium on windmill construction while a new ordinance was fashioned. Meanwhile, the Evans windmill crashed to the ground shortly before Christmas 2000. A cable had failed, it was thought, and the tower was re-erected with a stiff metal plate replacing the cable.