Industrial wind turbines are being pushed by government and wind developers, doing their own studies, to promote their own interests. All of us who are in the line of fire from these gigantic industrial installations seem to be of little concern. Our rural countryside is threatened with industrial wind power installations with minimum setbacks from homes of only 400 meters.

[T]he developer has offered a contribution to Burney to ensure the town profits from the dramatic change to its landscape. Ideas have included a community hall, a recreation district and town beautification. The developer in July outlined donations to a Burney community fund and an educational foundation ...It sounds promising, but the last-minute scramble doesn't instill confidence in the county's due diligence. And springing details at the Planning Commission meeting doesn't give the town time for a fully informed debate about the pros and cons.

The public information program that was held at the Thousand Islands Central School on Sept. 25 was attended by Jefferson County residents who wanted to learn more about industrial wind turbines. The program was put together by a group of citizens from the Cape Vincent, Clayton, Orleans, Lyme and Brownville areas who saw a need for a program like this. ...The public needs to be informed of how our quality of life would be affected and reminded that we are not in an Empire Zone so the profits here would not be close to what was gained in Lewis County.

Do you live inside an industrial wind farm? I do. I live within the Forward-Invenergy project. It is a tremendous invasion of our life style and a horrible happening to our area. My wife, our 13-year-old son and I have experienced headaches, nausea, light headedness, lack of sleep because we hear them in all rooms of our house ...I trusted the elected officials of the town and county and the state's public service commission. That was a terrible mistake. If you allow large industrial limits closer than the set backs I mentioned above you will regret it. It will divide your community.

The windmills Windforce LLC are proposing to put on Dan's Mountain are over 400 feet tall the blades are 150 feet long. You will be able to see the windmills from almost everywhere in Allegany County. There are currently only two buildings in Baltimore larger, one in Pittsburgh and one in Cleveland. Do you want our Western Maryland Mountain side destroyed only to bring a profit to an out of town company?

These three letters all respond to recent news reports on the wind energy facility proposed for Amherst Island and the potential of that project exceeding the 88-turbine Wolfe Island facility now under construction.

The land affected by this monumentally inappropriate industrial development is set to dominate and face the central heart of Sutherland. ...This is not just a Brora-Helmsdale issue but one that must be for the individual and is now of national and international importance. Our complex peatlands and wildlands are among some of the finest tracts of singular landscape beauty and rare habitat within Europe. All this is meaningless to the developers and their contractors, whose careless handiwork is already in monumental flailing form, demeaning and dominating sites around the Highlands.

Death, destruction and insomnia are marketed as "renewable electricity" to urban consumers. The federal production tax credit drives it all, with additional subsidies on national forest, where no property taxes are levied. ...We'd have to replace nearly every tree with a turbine to offset even a small amount of coal's impact, devastating the forest in the process. Without a national policy on energy conservation and efficiency, we're whistling in the wind anyway.

It's probably too much to expect, but, following the country's latest landslide or bog overflow, county councils and An Bord Pleanála should have more regard for people living in susceptible areas. Despite the concerns of people in Derrybrien, Co Galway, regarding a wind farm in their area, planning permission was granted for it by An Bord Pleanála. Residents' worst fears came to pass when a landslide caused devastation in 2003. Fast forward to August, 2008, and a similar landslide involving 20 acres of bog in the Kielduff/Lyrecrompane area of Co Kerry. ...The Irish Peatland Conservation Council (IPCC), which aims to save Irish boglands, is calling on the Government to come up with a policy on the location of wind farms in sensitive habitats.

Forcing a quick decision on the Hatchet Ridge Wind turbine project divides the citizens of Burney. Looking at the recent article in both CNN and the Record Searchlight about the polarizing effects the arrival of wind power has had on the small town of Lowville, N.Y., the situation there is similar to what is taking place in Burney over the Hatchet Ridge turbines. The 195 400-foot turbines in New York state have pitted "neighbor against neighbor and father against son." There are similar strong feelings in Burney.

Wind power has been proposed in letters to the editor as a good option to LNG, but there is no silver bullet solution to our energy needs, as far as I can see. Because wind power depends on the wind, it is an unreliable source of electrical power. Wind power must be backed up by a more reliable conventional power source. That power source is LNG. As wind power develops out, more LNG power plants will be built to back up wind power. Wind power cannot replace LNG; it will, instead, make LNG more necessary.

Wind turbines sound great when you first hear about them. Who is against renewable energy? Farmers who struggle to make a living are eying up the $9,000 they are to receive per turbine per year. Ten turbines is a retirement income of $90,000! Who would blame the farmers! And the Bonnechere and Madawaska township councils can see much-needed tax dollars flowing in. But there are problems with the whole scheme. ...Let's make sure that if we choose to install hundreds of 400- foot high turbines in our heritage countryside we do so from informed choice.

For now, wind power's triumphant march in the U.S. can count on another legal smackdown of "NIMBYism," after a Texas appeals court yesterday dismissed a suit by landowners upset with a big wind farm built by FPL Energy. Landowners decried the turbines' noise and their spoiled sunsets-which the court agreed was a pity-but the appeals court couldn't find grounds to rule against the power company. ...Congress is meant to reconvene next month for yet another attempt at renewing clean-energy tax credits. But does it have any recipe to make clean energy more appealing to the folks who hate it?

It is clear the majority of commissioners court is in favor of allowing the wind farm to go up in northern Young County. From a government perspective, the choice is easy. By agreeing to waive some of the property tax for 10 years, commissioners will see the income to the county rise by between $200,000 and $400,000 each year. ...While wind farms are often beneficial to property owners who lease their land, they are frequently hated by other land owners. The bottom line is putting 40 or 50 wind generators up in Young County will drastically change the scenic view many people have become accustomed to. If you want an example of what you may see, just drive down Highway 16 South toward Possum Kingdom Lake and look at the windmills sitting south of Bryson.

No matter how much good PR wind energy gets in the U.S., or in Virginia, from politicos eager to jump on the "green power" band wagon, officials and residents in both counties must retain their focus here at home. They should tune out the frenzied and exaggerated scare tactics used so often to shove wind power down our throats. They must keep their eyes squarely in their own back yards when it comes to siting issues. Everything from wildlife and environmental impacts to the majority voices of those who live here must take precedence over the misleading public relations machine that takes the spotlight off the millions of dollars we already spend to subsidize a source of power that cannot meet our needs if developed ...

It is the very magnitude of this power that has begun to raise some questions about the weather-related implications of harnessing wind. The laws of thermodynamics tell us that if energy is produced by a turbine, the wind passing over it must be slowed. While the effect today is negligible, a crash program to harvest wind power might have serious climatic consequences. ...Evidence also suggests that turbines amplify desiccation in fragile desert areas, where American wind farms are typically located. A study of ground squirrels by the University of California at Davis found those living near wind turbines exhibited signs of increased stress.

Accompanying the myth that wind turbine energy will replace fossil fuel energy is denial of the ecological impacts and health effects of wind turbines by governments and promoters. The ugly reality is that wind turbines are a serious addition to the industrialization of quiet rural landscapes, places that people have long valued for quality of life, retirement and recreation. The environmental costs imposed on wildlife and people have been systematically ignored by a political and regulatory system that has corrupted individual and societal freedom and environmental integrity by relegating these values to some distant offshoot of economic growth.

I would simply like simple answers to simple questions, i.e., what happens when the wind doesn't blow?; what happens when the wind blows too hard?; how many dirty power plants will be decommissioned as a result of embracing wind power?; how many projected new plants now on the books will be scrapped?; will the air over the Smoky Mountains become cleaner and clearer as a result of wind turbines?; will ozone alerts become fewer and farther between?; where are we going to put 300,000 wind turbines to meet the proposed goal of generating 20 percent of the nation's electricity by 2025?

Sunday's massive series of explosions at a Toronto propane plant gives credence to every Not In My Backyard (NIMBY) argument posed to this point in time. ...In Barrie, Northern Ethanol's plan to build a plant on the former Molson Brewery site has faced opposition from residents in every part of the city. Opposition to Bob Jackson's plan to built a wind turbine on his Mapleview Drive West Toyota dealership has, conversely, caused mostly local concerns. In both cases, however, opponents fear the worse. ...And everyone is concerned about how it will affect their bottom lines, property values. The point is, the reason people look at worst-case scenarios is that sometimes they happen.

Currently, the wind law is designed to accommodate the noise levels expected by the developer PPM Energy. These levels are measured at the outside wall of a resident's home, disregarding one's property line, and are unhealthy. Federal guidelines state that an appropriate level of noise in a bedroom during sleep is 24dBA (A-weighted decibels). However, our current local laws allow noise levels to reach 50dBA. State guidelines in New York state that an increase of 6dBA above normal background will cause complaints and should be avoided. According to the guidelines, an increase of 20dBA is intolerable. ...We have shown our local government that placing 62 turbines in a four- by five-mile populated area is harmful to residents. To date the town leaders in Clayton continue to ignore the plea from residents to protect us.