Thanks to the foresight and enlightened public policy of the Yorkshire Town Board, the 30 megawatt (MW) project (approximately 15 turbines) proposed in Yorkshire has blown away. Nowhere in New York state have turbines been erected prior to the enactment of a local town law. Fortunately, the Yorkshire Board did an extensive cost-benefit analysis and correctly determined the negative impacts of industrial wind turbines in residential areas far exceed the limited economic benefits to the community.

Tazewell County residents are polarized on the windmill issue. Some are in favor of the wind turbines while some are adamantly opposed. Bluefield, Va., Mayor Don Harris reported that a large number of local residents have made it clear that they will be attending the scheduled Dec. 1 hearing to either protest or support the issue. The majority of the local residents appear to be opposed to the erection of wind turbines along East River Mountain, especially those who live within sight of the mountain.

In 2007, SCE proposed its $1.72 billion dollar Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project (TRTP) to bring renewable wind energy to Southern California. A small portion of the project passes through the community of Chino Hills. This is the only community along the 173 mile route where SCE proposes to construct 200-foot high, 60-foot wide poles within 75 feet of homes. SCE has never done this before. Nor has any utility in the country ever installed a 500,000 volt transmission line so close to existing homes. Over 1,000 homes will be within 500 feet of the line, along with daycares, places of worship and parks.

Rural rejecters of wind power aren't bumptious bumpkins, says Adrian Snook. We are asserting our rights as consumers and voters. ...Opinion polls consistently show strong public support for wind power in the UK with around 80% of people expressing support and only 10% opposed. Yet when this translates into local voter reaction to onshore wind development, particularly in England and Wales, support seems to evaporate. It is often replaced by deep anger and opposition. Why is this? I believe there are two reasons.

Research indicates the best site for a wind turbine to be a windy spot in the middle of nowhere. Winnebago County is in no such location, nor is the name of my hometown Middle-of-Nowhere, Illinois! If an ordinance is to be written, and I acknowledge that this is necessary, let that ordinance be an innovative and original document. As is now presented, this ordinance is a cookie-cutter document provided by Navitas for the specific purpose of advancing that company's goals.

It is often said there are always two sides to any story. And generally I believe this to be true. But after five years in this chair I continue to strain to hear or comprehend the argument for wind energy-I have failed to hear a persuasive argument that explains why we had to ruin Wolfe Island and why we must do the same to Prince Edward County. I am still waiting.

The low price of electricity and abundance of it right now are hurting renewables, and there is essentially no market for new generation. He also said he doesn't expect that to change for several years. So why are we willing to obliterate our mountains and fill our night sky with flashing red lights for something we may not even need?

Apart from the fact that wind energy is impractical and unreliable, the cost of creating these wind farms is also outrageous (ie. service roads, police escorts, labour, new substations and transmission lines). High demand is also placing too much strain on the mills. As a result, they often malfunction. None of this compares though to the story of Barbara Ashbee-Lormand and her husband Dennis Lormand of Shelburne, Ontario.

In the last year I have been to some of the local hearings and information meetings about wind turbine parks and have visited several operating turbine sites, but I have not heard a lot of discussion about the impacts of nighttime lighting. I spent an evening in Cape Vincent looking at the nighttime lighting of the Wolfe Island wind turbine park. ...Standing on the shore in Cape Vincent, in the dark, looking across three miles to the nearest turbine light (five to seven miles to the farthest), more than 20 red strobes blitz simultaneously every two-and-a-half seconds.

The Sept. 1 letter of Claire Jones hits a key point. Ms. Jones apparently is a regular visitor to the Thousand Island area from far away. I too am a regular visitor, and like so many, we cannot believe how some local town officials are seriously prepared to transform the area in a most profound way. Having seen the Maple Ridge Wind Farm many times on my way to the Thousand Islands, I am shocked that efforts are under way to bring such visually dominating infrastructure to the Thousand Islands.

It's really quite easy to dismiss opponents of wind farms as suffering more from the "not-in-my-backyard" (NIMBY) syndrome than any particular health problem. Wind farms are the cleanest form of energy we have, consuming no fuel and emitting no pollution. They are one part of the solution to wean the world off fossil fuels. And they are being built as quickly as the turbines can roll off the assembly lines ...But for the Ontario government to dismiss what appears to be growing concern about potential health problems generated by wind farms is folly.

‘Wind Power Monthly' (The Editor, September 1998), the magazine for the wind industry and its supporters, actually recognized almost 11 years ago that the reason for the growing unpopularity of wind power is that a de facto heavy industry has tricked its way into unspoiled countryside in "green" disguise. The editor stated that: "Too often the public has felt duped into envisioning fairy tale wind parks in the countryside. The reality has been an abrupt awakening. Wind power stations are no parks."

As tourists arrive to appreciate this landscape for the first time, it is here that many also have their first encounter with modern, large-scale wind power production. Upon seeing that these facilities are not, as they are portrayed in numerous cartoon images on electrical bills, mere sets of three or four towers nestled into rolling glens, travelers' first impressions are often negative. Such encounters do not just hurt tourism in Texas but also renewable energy causes in tourists' own parts of the world.

The placement of wind turbines near homes is an international problem that can in no way be likened to living near a train or an airport. It is not just what you hear but what you don't hear (low frequency vibration) that causes well-documented health problems. It's insidious that way. Also insidious is the quiet creation of the Ontario Green Energy Act -- a piece of legislation that removes all rights of local municipalities to take part in critical planning decisions for their own communities.

Why do our town officials value the wind companies more than the citizens they represent? Furthermore, it's hard to understand why so many people are indifferent about the issue. Many people say, "I don't care one way or another because I won't see them from my house or from the village. They won't affect me." To me this translated to I don't care what happens to my neighbors or my community.

This year, things have changed utterly. The future has arrived on Wolfe Island with a wind-turbine vengeance. And many ferry passengers will surely lament this summer that one of Ontario's more tranquil refuges has been turned into a wind-turbine theme park. ...Whatever the technical merits of the project, there's no question about the aesthetic impact on the island. The turbines have tilted its ambience from the pastoral to the industrial.

At what point does it become a matter of personal responsibility to stand up and speak out to preserve the priceless beauty and health of a God-given resource that once irreversibly damaged by corporate and political greed can never be replaced? ...Now after the introduction of industrial-scale wind turbines and high voltage switchyards and transformers to Sheldon, and the dumping of thousands of tons of industrial waste from the 100 year-old industrial steel site into the agricultural fields where food is grown or cattle graze ... we choose to exercise our rights as a democratic society and therefore stand up and speak out as necessary to preserve this land that is the Orangeville that we love.

How would you imagine an environmentalist would react when presented with the following proposition? A power company plans to build a new development on a stretch of wild moorland. It will be nearly seven miles long, and consist of 150 structures, each made of steel and mounted on hundreds of tons of concrete. ...The answer is that if you are like many modern environmentalists you will support this project without question. You will dismiss anyone who opposes it as a nimby ...and campaign for thousands more.

Imagine that all gas pumps were wind "powered." How sure would you be that the amount of gas you wanted would be there? How long might it take to fill your tank? How long would the lines be awaiting service? As you parse this situation, think of the loss in productivity that would result. Because it produces no capacity value, is inimical to demand cycles, provides only early 19th century power productivity, in the process making everything and everyone around it work harder.

"Governor, I spent the first 35 years of my life in and around Fond du Lac County. "Returning after several years away, I find vast swaths of rural Wisconsin being heedlessly vandalized by industrial wind turbines, monstrosities that produce no useful output except tax breaks and carbon offsets for fat cats in Chicago and New York.