Senators took a bill that called for a three-year moratorium on large-scale wind developments, pared it down to legislation that would have required large energy generation projects to conform to Act 250 land-use criteria, and then stripped it to $75,000 worth of studies for the House to consider.

The Reillys say they can hear the sound or vibrations from the turbines in town even in a basement room, where they thought they would be insulated from the noise. They would like the turbine to be shut down at night. While the Reillys aren't experiencing other symptoms, they've been warned that other symptoms can develop over time.

The project will "significantly alter a 450-million-year-old iconic ridgeline visible throughout Orleans County. As stated in the 2005 Craftsbury Town Plan, our natural features are at the core of our sense of place and our community identity," the commission wrote. The town's three-member Selectboard agreed to endorse the Conservation Commission's letter and send it to the Public Service Board.

Reilly said people feel like the turbines are an imposition on their rights and came out to make their voices heard. "I think the Siting Council got a clear message from the town," Reilly said. Reilly said his group has 29 witnesses to provide testimony to the council and 2,000 pages of documents to support their case. He felt when the process is over the council will conclude the application needs to be denied.

Construction of a 1.5-megawatt industrial wind turbine in Union Beach will be erected by January 2011, pending two new bird and bat impact studies, officials from the Bayshore Regional Sewerage Authority (BRSA) said last week. ...More than 40 residents of Union Beach and Hazlet urged BRSA commissioners to reevaluate the public health risks for its proposed 1.5-megawatt project at the meeting.

He said before construction of the turbine on his property, First Wind company officials said he and his wife would notice no more than the hum of a refrigerator. "Every time­­­ we asked questions about the noise, we were told not to worry," he said. Now, he says, the machine "sounds like a jet engine in your back yard that will never take off." He said the noise has been measured at over 100 decibels (about the same as a power lawnmower at 3 ft.).

The county's noise complaint resolution process was back in the spotlight this week as the Huron County Planning Commission learned the board of commissioners did not vote on its previous recommendation - and now it's back to the drawing board. The planning commission is working to create a specific section in the county's wind ordinance that would detail a process for residents to file official complaints about the turbines.

Madakaripura villager Basavaraj's happiness knew no bounds when huge blades were transported to the top of a nearby hillock in 1997. It was here in Chitradurga district that Jindal Aluminium installed the district's first wind turbine generator (WTG). ...But, hopes for a brighter future faded. "Now, the fans are there, the blades are making a racket. The view from my village has changed, but nothing more," he says. The villagers continue using kerosene lamps at night.

Another wind farm is planned for Schuylkill County. The proposal will come up Wednesday night at a zoning meeting at the North Schuylkill High School. There is opposition from people who live near the proposed site for the giant windmills. Even from a few miles away wind farms are hard to miss. They're usually located on mountaintops.

With the very audible rapid whirring of two ceiling fans overhead a constant reminder of the issue, about 500 people jammed into the centre to learn more about proposed industrial wind turbines in the area. Ward 16 Coun. David Marsh told the audience he was holding the town hall meeting as a means to get clarification from the private company Energy Farming Ontario about its intention to build up to 30 of the turbines. He also raised concern that the provincial government's new Green Energy Act ...removes residents' and the city's right to appeal the towers going in to their neighbourhoods.

Opponents of a wind farm project approved last month by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection are appealing that final order. Through attorney Rufus Brown of Portland, Concerned Citizens to Save Roxbury, 37 individual camp or property owners, and the Silver Lake Camp Owners Association filed the appeal on Monday. Roxbury Pond is also called Silver Lake.

It's either a great blessing or a total mess, depending which side you talk to. For every argument supporting or against local wind energy development, there's seemingly an equally strident counterpoint. It's been no different over the past four years regarding the High Sheldon Wind Farm. The sparring included vocal debate and a failed lawsuit by some residents opposing the project.

Officials got an earful when they visited Redding earlier this month. Nearly 200 Shasta and Tehama County residents packed the Red Lion Hotel ballroom asking skeptical and sometimes hostile questions about the proposed project. ...The new line would also allow TANC members access to wind, solar and geothermal energy that may one day be developed in Lassen County and other rural areas.

A group of concerned citizens in the Merigomish area have launched an investigation into the information Shear Wind has provided to the province as part of its environmental assessment.

Blair County Judge Daniel Milliron in a 20-page ruling dismissed claims of negligence and conspiracy made by Jill and Todd Stull against Gamesa, producers of the windmills and developers of phase one of the windmill farm at the Cambria-Blair County line. Six other objections filed by Gamesa or Allegheny Ridge in response to the Stull's lawsuit were overruled by Milliron.

As Maine preps for wind power, medical staff at Rumford Hospital say turbines may make people sick. Others beg to differ. The phrase "vibroacoustic syndrome" started him Googling. The worrisome set of symptoms - allegedly caused by exposure to low-frequency noise and linked by some to wind farms - sent him on a mission he didn't anticipate. This week Dr. Albert Aniel, an internist at Rumford Community Hospital, mailed a letter to Gov. John Baldacci. He visited the Mexico Board of Selectmen. He's contacting every town manager in the River Valley.

Should wind turbines hundreds of feet tall -higher than the existing Kumeyaay wind farm turbines- be allowed in the rural McCain Valley/Boulevard region in East County? Does the nation's critical need for "green" energy outweigh the concerns of residents seeking to preserve the rural character of their backcountry communities? With new industrial-scale wind farms proposed across America, East County Magazine's Gayle Early set out on a quest to explore these issues in depth for our three-part series on wind energy.

A wind farm that would be Southern Nevada's first could sprout 30 miles south of Boulder City near Searchlight as soon as 2011. Some Searchlight residents, though thankful planners have already moved turbines because of their concerns, worry that the wind-powered energy plant would be ugly, noisy and deadly to wildlife. Yesterday, about 60 Searchlight and Cal-Nev-Ari residents met with planners ...

Bill Durdan has farmed northeast of Grand Ridge for 43 years and often relied on crop dusters. Now, however, he has been told his proximity to wind turbine towers will prevent him from receiving that service. The cost to him could be lost crops and lost revenue, he told the La Salle County Zoning Board of Appeals Tuesday evening. ...Kim Schertz of Hudson, who works in her husband's crop dusting business, said the problem is pilots simply can not safely pull up and make the necessary turns in a wind farm area. "These guys are good, but they're not kamikazes."

The company behind plans to build a wind farm at Podington has challenged the result of a public consultation. Bedford Borough Council has just finished asking residents about the proposal at Airfield Farm, and received just 216 comments in support compared with 441 objecting. But energy firm Nuon Renewables has released a report of its own, claiming a majority of local residents - 66.5 per cent - support the bid to create a three-turbine wind farm at Airfield Farm.