The long-awaited full report on the Horse Creek Wind Farm noise study will go public in a week, the town announced Wednesday. But the availability of the report was not enough to satisfy upset residents who stormed into the council meeting demanding that the town start formulating a local law to limit noise levels of wind turbines and establish setbacks. "We need to start clearing the air," said Patricia Booras-Miller, vice president of Environmentally Concerned Citizens Organization of Jefferson County.

But here in Gloucester, it seems that government is "by the developer, for the developer." The City Council has cast a unanimous vote to grant a special permit for a private-use wind turbine that Mac Bell plans to install on the banks of the Annisquam River, rising 240 feet into the air and only 315 feet from a playground. Sixty neighbors who live in the immediate vicinity of the proposed turbine site signed a petition opposing it. Ward 3 Councilor Steven Curcuru dismissed this number as "insignificant."

The Boone County Board is considering a zoning ordinance that would permit wind turbines as close as 1,000 feet of adjacent property. That is a far cry from the current setback of 2,000 feet, which after numerous meetings of the Zoning Board of Appeals, three Boone County Board meetings and two years of litigation in the 17th Judicial Circuit Court, was deemed reasonable given the limitations to aviation, crop dusting and quality of life of adjacent property owners. ...An enterprise can be a good neighbor when it listens to its neighbors and makes adjustments accordingly. That is what a zoning ordinance should encourage, and no doubt does encourage for other industry. But why are wind projects any different?

There is an atmosphere of intimidation in this province stemming from the attitude that if you challenge or question the government or industry about a proposed alternative energy project, you are an opponent of renewable energy and have little regard for the future of this planet. The citizens of Wolfe Island who are questioning the wind-farm project are not against renewable energy. They are for environmental responsibility.

The neighbors of the proposed wind turbine project in Freedom are asking the voters of Freedom to reinstate the Commercial Review Ordinance at the June referendum, retroactive to the date of the repeal. This is the only way to put some reasonable standards in force. When the town voted to repeal the ordinance last year, we were told the Planning Board would write a new one. That has not happened. ...Consequently, we have no protection from noise, ice throw, strobe effect, no safety setbacks, no standards of any type. These 400-foot turbines will be located only 350 feet from our property lines. We don't even have a fall zone, much less the safety setbacks recommended by turbine manufacturers.

I read the letter from by Paul C. Mason, Cape Vincent, "Uninformed Cape wind foes spread rumors." I may not have visited the office of the St. Lawrence Wind Farm, but I have attended their informational meetings and presentation of their Draft Environmental Impact Statement to the Cape Vincent Planning Board (which was incomplete) as well as the meetings held by BP and the presentation of their DEIS, which was also incomplete. ...When townspeople started to question how many, how big and where they were going to be placed, that is when everything got ugly. So now we are a town divided. Whose fault is that? Maybe it was the way it was done when they sneak behind closed doors. Maybe because it is a subject that divides families and friends. You cannot blame anyone who asks questions of these companies, after all the people who signed away the rights to their land for 20 to 30 years have lost their rights to question anything or anyone. So that leaves me. I still have all of my rights, and I intend to use them.

I'd like to recommend some light reading for long winter nights to residents of Randolph and Barbour counties, especially those folks along Harrison Avenue on the west side of Elkins. Download the AES Laurel Mountain Wind Project application from the Public Service Commission and pick a chapter. You might have to wait for this 1,381-page document. And the PSC has made it nearly impossible to download its three 10.4, 67.3 and 110MB-sized volumes on a dial-up connection, which the majority of effected residents have. The chapter I read last evening deals with shadow flicker ...I recommend that private landowners along the eight-mile route of the proposed project go the PSC Web site and do a little reading. They also might want to let the PSC know their feelings. Tonight I'm going to tackle the chapter on bats.

Even if Virginia-based AES or Oregon-based PPM Energy secures enough land to make the project feasible, the project could take years to complete - if ever. But there's no doubt wind power is increasingly practical - and that officials would like Allen County to jump on the bandwagon. "Hopefully the people out there will accept it," said Commissioner Bill Brown. "This could provide $1 million of income (for landowners) every year, increase assessed value and help the community. Wind farms also tend to generate plenty in property taxes, Burdick said. The question is: Will Coomer and other landowners conclude the benefits outweigh the drawbacks? And even if they do, would such a huge and potentially controversial project be approved by government regulators?

So it's dead - or on life support, at best. The news that three county commissioners went public this week against the Florida Power & Light Co. wind turbine project on Hutchinson Island effectively seems to have killed the idea. All we're lacking now is the official obituary. Paula Lewis was the latest to make up her mind, following Doug Coward, but it was the project's chief proponent - Chris Craft - who turned a few heads Tuesday when he announced his opposition.

I have been a resident in the town of Arkwright for almost 10 years. In my opinion, the town board meeting was not an indication of "the community coming together." A community is not together because the town supervisor declares that to the local media to sway public opinion. A community does not come together when proposing ideas and addressing important concerns to the leaders of our town is looked at as "confrontational questions" and "obvious objections." This is not about who agrees with wind power and who disagrees with wind power. The community is divided because Horizon is a huge company, no longer an American company, that has come into a small town with landowners desperate for money, in a society that no longer supports local farming, and a town board basing decisions on financial gains and nothing more. The result: 47 gigantic wind towers up to 330 feet and a turbine size of up to 300 feet, in an area that was considered residential/agricultural a year ago and has since been switched over to industrial zoning.

The smugness with which the two abutters opposing the Hyannis Country Gardens wind turbine were met at a recent meeting by some planning board members and non-abutters was, to me, insulting.

Lack of vision and an inability to understand the importance of preserving a town's character and its sense of place, combined with the negative impact of commercial development, has made Fairhaven what it is today. A big part of our problem has been Executive Secretary Jeff Osuch and this non-elected public official's ability to control town government. His blind confidence in new technology has made us a testing ground for pet projects. This time, the town has been sold on two giant misplaced wind turbines by using a smokescreen of environmentalism. Again, he has masterfully played town government to make it happen.

The surprise that one week before Thanksgiving Massachusetts Speaker of the House Sal DiMasi had thrown a last-minute Mickey into a state energy bill was no surprise at all…just business as usual. Well… maybe not so usual. The obvious beneficiary of this maneuver to allow development of “alternative energy” projects within previously protected state ocean sanctuaries is one Jay Cashman, multi-millionaire construction tycoon and close personal friend of the speaker. Cashman has announced his plans to desecrate Buzzards Bay in the name of renewable profits.

County government has the right and duty to investigate the reality of wind turbine facilities and to write a wind energy ordinance that protects the health and safety of its citizens. ...You have to be very naive to believe a 400 to 500 foot, 270-ton to 330-ton piece of machinery would not make noise and negatively affect your family and community. Yes, many of us in Trempealeau County want to protect our health and safety - if you're as smart as I think you are, wouldn't you too?

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.

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.

I would ask the Nova Scotia Government to take a serious, long, hard look at this whole industry and take some leadership by declaring the minimum standards by which wind energy projects must abide. A responsible, intelligent set of standards could set the way for the rest of the country! Use the experience of those who have had turbines for decades and learn from their mistakes. Blindly surging ahead into wind energy without considering health and safety factors and reasonable enjoyment of a resident's property is not looking after your constituents - the people of Nova Scotia.

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.

However, as soon as the Welsh Assembly published TAN 8, heralding the current rush of local wind farm planning applications, we were forced to look more closely into the claims made for on-shore wind power - both for and against. We were determined to find out if its contribution to the community as a whole (with respect to energy provision and reducing greenhouse gas emissions) would outweigh the problems such massive re-industrialisation would bring to local people if allowed to go ahead. Using only government sources and respected technical documents from the power industry itself, the results of our research have shocked and amazed us. It is clear allowing these large wind farms would jeopardise our health, wealth and quality of life along with biodiversity and the quality of our landscape/environment. All this to no real purpose since they cannot replace ordinary power stations and are four times more expensive than other means of reducing our carbon footprint.

Setback requirements are a protection of the public health, safety and individual property rights - not a yardstick of a project's economic success. The people who have the most experience with commercial wind power today are the Europeans. They are saying that a minimum of one mile from residences and any turbine should be imposed to protect the public. But the bigger issue here is that our locally elected officials denied the project as designed and the governor believes she should override local land use authority based on how much more money Horizon can make.