The foreign-owned companies that are rushing to put 406-foot industrial wind turbines in our beautiful Thousand Islands area are not thinking about our safety or welfare or even about helping the environment. They just want to line their pockets with your tax dollars. The industrial wind turbines are subsidized with your federal and state taxes as well as surcharges collected from your electric bill. They will not reduce our nation's dependence on foreign oil since we do not use much oil to make electricity. ...The towns of Clayton and Orleans said that it's OK to put a 406-foot industrial wind turbine 500 feet from your property line or 1,250 feet from your home. That is too close for our health and safety.

I took a run this weekend over to Ellenburg and Clinton, N.Y., to see 121 wind turbines at work. These are the 400-foot behemoths installed over the fall and winter by Noble Environmental Power. They're the first of nearly 400 towers planned for this windy stretch of scrub and farmland just south of the Canadian border. We've been arguing about wind energy in Vermont for more than five years now. ... Only two conclusions were inescapable: First, a wind project undoubtedly transforms the landscape, for better or worse. Second, seeing a wind "farm" at work won't settle the argument over "better or worse."

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.

Eminent domain could be used for turbine placement and total number of units, all in the name of feasibility and "the public good." Local laws, no matter how restrictive, will be irrelevant once eminent domain is unleashed. All three levels of government seem unable to deal with the issue fairly. The state is bent on producing 25 percent green energy at any cost, not protecting rural citizens' safety and individual rights. The county cares only about the money, how much they get and who controls it without any responsibility for health, quality of life and property rights of all taxpayers. Local governments (some) try, but are no match for billion-dollar companies promising thousands of dollars to landowners as fast as they can. Seduced by money that's lavished on them, some officials and landowners ignore problems while trying to railroad through projects before anyone knows what's happening.

I have reviewed the environmental impact statements of several local communities that are considering approval of large wind farms in their localities. The only acoustical measurement that I see in their analyses deals with measuring an averaged noise level over the affected area. These draft environmental impact statements do not evaluate the annoying noises that rapidly change in noise level, such as the cyclic whooshing noises produced when the turbine blades pass by the support pedestal or the transient noises produced at turbine cut-in or cut-out or those periodic noises produced by the turbine gearboxes. Nor do they document the presence or absence of significant annoyance potential of low-frequency noises or vibrations which are known to be a very significant problem if the noise levels are high enough.

A recent letter about the Jordanville Wind Project oversimplifies the opposition of the Holy Trinity Monastery and others to the location of the proposed wind farm. The monks are not selfishly choosing serenity over clean energy. Rather, their concerns speak to a larger issue: the impact of industrial-scale wind turbine projects on New York's historic, scenic and cultural resources. In fact, the Preservation League of New York State named the Holy Trinity Monastery to our Seven to Save list of endangered places this month in part to call attention to the need for statewide siting standards for wind energy projects.

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.

Does the Town of Enfield have the right to construct an industrial site that will harm a neighboring municipality? Who will defend the rights of Hector and Catharine residents to clean water and an unpolluted lake? These are issues that must be confronted now, before the pollution occurs. Enfield, Catharine and Hector must address these issues immediately and put in place wind farm statutes and regulations that respect each other's lives, borders and rights as neighbors. We all can appreciate the need for cleaner energy. However, we do not have the right to expose our neighboring municipalities to the drainage, runoff pollution and threat to water tables (not to mention the health effects of the noise and shadow-flicker) that will accompany Enfield's industrial wind farm.

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.

A controversial proposed site for the placement of a wind farm in Enfield is the focus of public concern and debate. The issue in Enfield is not "green local energy." The primary issue is the responsible location and safe placement of commercial windmills (400 feet tall) and wind farms.

So I sit on my front porch wondering what this countryside will look like in the years to come. Will red lights that top off towers be across the horizon? Will there be a distinction at all between country and city? Will the stars forever disappear? Or will we all end up in darkness?

...All this, and the promise of quick money, effectively silences all voices of reason in the debate that will bring the most drastic change some communities will ever experience. Why? Because wind companies know that their shining green (dollars) exterior is simply a facade which quickly unravels upon critical examination.

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.

Even the most basic research will reveal the life-changing impact of the turbines on nearby communities. Of course, you will find some who speak well of them, but they are very much in the minority. Most people who live close (and, according to the feeble 1,000-foot setbacks, some people will be very close) speak of lives ruined by vibration, flicker and so on. Let there be no misunderstanding, those who sign up to take these turbines will inflict misery on anyone else close by.

What we have around here is wind. But the idealistic, pastoral vision we once might have had of Dutch boys playing along the dikes with wooden windmills churning in the background, or mountain ridges adorned with them for miles as if pickets in a giant fence, no longer exists. That vision has been corrupted by the realities of what those large-turbine contraptions mean for the people who live - or could live - near them.

Wind energy is an important renewable energy source. However, it is important to have a comprehensive plan for siting these high-tech wind facilities across New York state, in order to avoid any negative impacts upon surrounding areas. I have recently introduced legislation, S.4608, which seeks to study the need for a statewide comprehensive plan for siting wind facilities. Additionally, this bill would place an 18 month moratorium on any new construction or issuing of new permits for the construction of wind energy facilities, to enable the task force to complete its study and make recommendations.

The public needs to hear all of the FACTS and if it appears that the project could be detrimental in any way than it should not be constructed.

The commercial wind industry is making a mockery of environmental and renewable energy advocates who support them. They're often ruthless in their local activities, and will no doubt disappear long before we can hold them accountable for their indiscretions against us and against the planet. Where, I wonder, will Invenergy and others like them be when society realizes the folly of it all?

I have highlighted a few passages; in particular, the following, which Dr. Pierpont (my wife) tells me is textbook Wind Turbine Syndrome:

There are issues with noise, vibration and shadow flicker all having detrimental effects on people and animals.