Let's be perfectly clear. The only way to "mitigate" problems associated with industrial wind turbines is to make sure the projects do not go up within residential areas in the first place. As reported in a recent Daily News letter ("Think big on wind energy" by David Bassett, May 20, 2009) , the U.S. Department of Energy admitted when these immense machines were being developed that they were intended for placement in the remote, unpopulated areas of the Midwest, and offshore -- not amongst rural/residential areas like that of WNY.

Our work has shown that people in Mars Hill living within 3,500 feet of turbines there are truly suffering, in a real medical sense. Clearly, any regulation that results in placement of turbines, anywhere in Maine, at less than a 3,500-foot setback is courting a bad human outcome, regardless of sound modeling used by the industry to show there will be no ill effects in that range. As clearly demonstrated by post-construction measurements at Mars Hill, the model used by the wind industry for that project was seriously flawed.

Our impressive upper-level winds (average year-round 13.8 mph, no less) will make those jumbo-jet-sized turbine blades churn merrily. That's far faster than the 9 mph the super-efficient Siemens generators need to start turning over - and turning us on. I know the estimated 3,600 lucky Hutchinson Island recipients of this windy bounty are besides themselves with excitement over the news. I'm not so sure how the other hundreds of thousands of FPL customers feel about footing most of the $45 million bill.

I was APPALLED to recently read in The Hartford Courant an exposé of the wind farms planned for the Berkshires, including one in Savoy. To quote the Green Berkshires Web site: "Wind turbines produce very little energy but a lot of tax breaks, grants, subsidies and price supports for the developers, at tremendous expense to taxpayers and electricity ratepayers." Add to that the destruction of the environment involved (20 acres cleared for each turbine, for starters) and it is clear these projects are ill-advised. ...I will clearly NOT be retiring to Savoy. My property will remain undeveloped and continue to net the town a whopping $112 per year in taxes. And I will find someplace else to spend my generous state of Connecticut pension. I find it unlikely that this will be the only revenue loss the region sustains as a result of these projects.

Each time I've visited the Maple Ridge Wind Farm I've become more depressed about wind energy development. I could never seem to reconcile the professed benefits of these projects with their obvious adverse impacts. But today I learned the most valuable reason to oppose this industry. The Maple Ridge project site is 12 miles long by 3 miles wide. Up and down the roads we went today and I viewed this industrial power facility once again. In viewing the entire expanse of impacted area I couldn't help but notice that there was no sense of a living community - no routine life. No people walking their dogs, no hikers, no bicyclers, no children laughing and playing (school was out), no clothes hanging out to dry, no school buses, no dogs barking, and very few birds, no one on their four wheelers on their own lands enjoying the open air. There were no roadside stands selling pumpkins. The serenity of rural community life that we all know and love here in northern Jefferson County was strangely absent. In its stead, we saw massive machines everywhere we looked, on both sides of the road. This was Bill Moore's world and PPM literally owned it all.

Indeed, the final paragraph of the summary of the report says: "The low incidence of AM and the low numbers of people adversely affected make it difficult to justify further research funding in preference to other more widespread noise issues. On the other hand, since AM cannot be fully predicted at present, and its causes are not fully understood, we consider it might be prudent to carry out further research to improve understanding in this area." In normal circumstances, if 20% of a product released in the public domain was found to be faulty it would be withdrawn.

In the last several months my neighbours and I have directly spoken to many people whose lives have been affected by wind energy projects. It seems like there is not a project out there, large or small, that leaves a community unaffected. We have most recently heard from Pastor Mark Harris of Mars Hill, Maine. Pastor Harris was here at the Seventh Day Adventist camp on the Gulf Shore this week. This camp sees an average of 1000 people per week through the summer season. There is only one wind farm in Maine, and it is on Mars Hill. There are 20 families whose lives have been seriously and detrimentally affected by this project, built by UPC. Some turbines are extremely close to families. Complaints have been made from people living as far away as three miles.

There is a person near here who has had most everything done to his house to try to keep the noise out. The power company, from what I understand, is paying for trying to keep the noise out in his home. Nothing has worked. He still has the constant noise in his home. Unfortunately, the tower is on the neighbor's land. He is just going to have to put up with it. I had two couples come out looking at lots and both of them wanted front lots or lots at the top of the hill. When the women got here and looked around, they looked at the view to the north and to the south. No way, they said. We are not going to look at those towers the rest of our lives and both couples left. One of the couples bought 40 acres. The other couple would not buy around the wind charger area.

Wind turbine setback bylaws for Cumberland County are clearly inadequate for protection of the rights of residents who will be living adjacent to wind turbines. They desperately need to be re-examined and amended.

Our experience shows that there is a real noise problem, which can be severe. Unfortunately, it is clear that existing regulations are not adequate to protect people, and until this whole noise phenomenon is better understood and regulated we feel that Councils and wind developers should be exercising the Precautionary Principle. Large wind turbines should not be permitted close to residential areas.

Town officials who want to find out about wind power should book a room at the Flat Rock Inn in Tug Hill, in the midst of New York's largest wind plant, which has more than 150, 400-foot-high turbines. If they like the look during the day and the sound at night, they should come back and tell their constituents that the current proposal for wind power is just perfect. We, however, disagree. Yes, wind power is a wonderful solution to our energy problems but, like many good things, it can become a bad thing when used irresponsibly. Wind power plants must be carefully and responsibly sited and operated. The proposal as it stands is unsatisfactory and would seriously harm our community.

Mr. Keller writes about surprise in "extent of the decline" in the production of the province's four wind farms. There is no surprise among those who have studying the bigger industry picture and are not seduced by the exaggerated claims made by the industry and its supporters. Perhaps that surprise comes from the dawning realization that these turbines are not all that they have made out to be....... Wind generation is not even a partial solution to our energy needs, and climate concerns.

This editorial is in response to those who have questioned the veracity of viboracoustic disease and ‘wind turbine syndrome', most recently S.R. Zwenger who asked "can anyone provide published articles on this mysterious and elusive disease?".

I feel as if our community has been kept in the dark about the 130-plus wind turbine facility to be located in Ellis County. I am a neurologist in the Hays community, a taxpayer and a voting constituent. After doing a bit of research regarding wind turbines, I believe all of us residing in Ellis County need to be involved in making the decision of whether or not we should permit a wind turbine facility to be located 5 miles from the city of Hays. I am an advocate of wind and solar power. I believe wind power is an excellent manner in which to generate electricity. But, I do not believe it is in the best interest of Ellis County and the city of Hays to have this facility within 5 miles of our community.

As the debate over "Wind Farms" continues, and is now into court, I cannot help but wonder why it has progressed this far dividing neighbors, friends and families. I also reflect on how the whole ordeal, which has put much undue stress on all parties involved, could have been avoided had our County Board followed normal protocol regarding the granting of Special Use Permits. Last fall, when the hearing for Special Use Application was in front of the County Zoning Board of Appeals, there were several long nights of testimony from both sides. After all testimony was heard, the Zoning Board of Appeals voted 3-1 to deny the application. At that point, in normal county procedure, the issue is over and the applicants must wait a year to apply again. However, in this case, our County Board leadership decided to be above the norm and overturn the Zoning Board of Appeal's recommendation forcing themselves and the county into imminent litigation.

Mine is one of the homes on the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative shadow flicker and sound analysis. It's one of the homes represented by the letter "G," not a family, not a face, not a name, just the letter "G." In neighborhoods like mine live the families that will be affected by the shadow flicker and noise generated from the Little Bay wind farm. They are the nameless families in neighborhoods that have been given a life sentence of sound and light nuisance.

Daniel d'Entremont was probably the most impactful ‘lay' witness, as he lived 300-metres from the closest turbine at his home in Nova Scotia. He claims he and his family, were driven from their homes by the turbine noise. He has since been forced to leave the home he built with his own hands and can't sell it, because who would want to live that close to a giant?

Does the BWEA think it unreasonable that SWATT request that the Welsh Assembly call a moratorium on wind farm development until independent surveys are executed on these vital issues. Concerning the election, our campaign resulted in us getting the issue onto the election agenda. And the two anti-TAN 8 main parties were the ones who gained seats in the elections.

Some T.I. residents will be saying goodbye to those quiet summer evenings. There are now two wind turbine noise reports submitted by developers along the Thousand Islands corridor. One by AES-Acciona Energy concludes their project in Cape Vincent would not "create a significant noise impact." PPM Atlantic Renewable, on the other hand, freely admits to Town of Clayton residents that their project "would be clearly audible." In both cases, developers ignored the biggest potential noise threat from wind farm development - atmospheric stability.

On April 25, The Hays Daily News ran a fairly extensive news story on the proposed development of the industrial wind power generation plant west and southwest of Hays. That article stated that about 80 local families have expressed their opposition so far, but it did not say much about why there is this opposition. Let me try to explain very briefly some of the multiple sources of opposition. But please understand that this is an extremely brief explanation of each. More information is available at a public meeting being held tonight in the Fox Pavilion, starting at 7 p.m. and sponsored by the Ellis County Environmental Awareness Coalition. (Full disclosure: I am a member of this group.) I would say that the opposition can be divided into three groups, and these groups often overlap.