Why people clam up about wind turbines
I am writing in response to the lead story in the April 16 edition of the Telegraph titled “Turbines divide neighbors.” These wind companies still have everyone fooled. That wind farm will not produce an average 226 megawatts. As I stated in a previous letter, the average output will be about 50 megawatts. It will not power 55,000 homes.
The article states very few people would talk. There’s a reason for that. Once a landowner signs a lease to have a windmill, they can talk about it only to family members, a lawyer, or other landowners involved with the same company.
They forfeit the right to complain if there is an unforeseen problem. Neighbors who sign up for money are legally silenced, too.
What do the windmill companies have to hide? Why would they take away your due process if these things are so great? Would you have someone work on your house who gave you a contract like this to sign? If they are so great, then why did Renewable Energy Systems start having small meetings at a private residence?
By having small, personally invited groups, the windmill companies must feel they won’t be questioned by people who have done their research and won’t be asked the tough questions that come up in a more public forum. To meet this 25 percent renewable energy resource, it will take thousands and thousands of windmills. Apparently our Lee County Board wants all of these windmills in our county by making it so easy for these wind companies to come in and set up.
The zoning board won’t let a landowner sell off 1 acre from a farm to a family member to build a house because they don’t want prime farmland taken out of production, but this same board has no problem letting a wind company put three or four windmills on this same farm, taking up as much or more land with the turbine site and access roads as a 1-acre home site.
When will it end? When every parcel of land in rural Lee County is blanketed with windmills?
This is an excerpt from an RES brochure: “Usually, sites are located in high wind areas on larger parcels of undeveloped land.” Is Lee or DeKalb county a high wind area with undeveloped land? Then why are they allowed to come in so easily and disrupt people’s lives?
Neil Miller
Ashton
23 April 2009
