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

This “wind rush” has been brought on chiefly by escalating concerns over global warming, government tax structures and subsidies that encourage development and an increasing awareness of finite supplies of fossil fuels.

If you think wind turbines are benign free energy producers, do your homework.
Editor's Note: This also appeared in The American Daily http://americandaily.com/article/13173

But the process has become a handy tool for developers rather than a safety net for anyone needing protection.

Let me be clear from the start - we are not opposed to renewables. Our companies have been the beneficiaries of the state's most abundant form of renewable energy - hydropower. What we do object to is being forced to subsidize those renewables that are not cost competitive...............Adding significant amounts of wind power does not negate the need to add more baseload generation, to ensure system reliability during periods of peak demand. Until we add significant baseload capacity in this state we are not likely to reap the benefits of a truly competitive marketplace where supply will respond to demand.

The state currently has no requirements for environmental studies of wind turbine sites. We need a law requiring wildlife surveys before and after the installation of wind turbines. Places with high populations of vulnerable wildlife should be avoided.

Wind power as the alternative source of power generation seems to be breaking through as everybody's darling. General Electric is investing heavily in it. President Bush, having lately discovered that America is addicted to oil, is supporting the admittedly clean energy that comes from wind turbines, and the environmental community loves windmills. Are we perhaps getting too far ahead of ourselves by uncritically embracing wind turbines?

It struck me that the wind farm is scheduled to be operating by 2008, only two years hence. I work on deadlines. I guessed, then, that all during the public hearing process, and the permit-application process, and the permission-to-build process, these guys will be building the project, anyway.

The presence of wind farms will have literally NO impact on the number of coal burning plants that must be kept on line to meet demand. NONE.

Neither Ms. Perry nor other wind energy advocates have successfully challenged the substance of my papers. Instead, they resort to ad hominem attacks.

I have been an unabashed critic of large scale industrial development for Cherry Valley from the very beginning. The experience of working on two very sophisticated planning documents made me believe that the large footprint turbines bring to the town will do irreversible damage to Cherry Valley’s future.

The Adirondack Park has served as a model for parks and protected areas across the globe. Its economic prospects rest on whether its natural wonders and wild character are assured.

This is where the Buffalo Harbor Development Commission, the Niagara Greenway Commission and Higgins' waterfront planning come into play. It is essential that the NRIBA designation is understood and addressed by all planning agencies and decisions. It is critical that the threats to the area are understood and addressed. Appropriate development that recognizes both the fragility of the area and the global conservation consequences related to its stewardship and development should become a baseline indicator from which all planning grows.

Editor's Note: With at least five test towers already standing, wind developers in concert with local advocates are attempting to install hundreds of industrial wind turbines in the Niagara region. The threat to this fragile area is real. Both of the photos included in the text are available in the NWW photo library as Birdland on the Niagara 1 & 2.

The legislature needs to be involved in the RPS process. It is a crime to raise hundreds of millions of dollars and then fritter it away on projects that in the end will not reduce emissions.

It's time to speak plainly and without fear of the obviousness of this unprecedented situation, as each and every day another portion of a concerned and well-meaning public is carefully exposed to the ‘green’ idea of commercial wind power.

The decision to drastically alter our landscape will affect our quality of life, our wallets, and our grandchildren.

Opposition to industrial wind power, however, is about more than just the view.

Initially, I was delighted. But then I began listening to the concerns of residents near the proposed site, hikers, skiers, birdwatchers, astronomers who frequent the nearby observatory and even trainee pilots concerned about 400 foot wind turbines cropping up in the flight path to the Ithaca airport. As a result, I am no longer an unabashed supporter of tapping Mount Pleasant.

In these early stages of U.S. wind development, promoters still have it pretty easy. They're our new best friends! But it's likely their popularity will be short-lived, as it won't take long before rural America realizes that their own initial awe and stupor was contrived, allowing the very quality of their lives to be stolen out from under them, and they will also realize, too late, that their loss was in vain.