We, the people who love Orangeville do not choose to have our homes and recreational areas turned into an industrial zone for any amount of money! We do not choose to suffer from effects of high unbearable amounts of noise and turn our quiet countryside into an unsuitable place to raise our families as a result of now, introducing an industrial park that will intrude into our midst. ...It would seem that no stone should be left unturned in comprehensively examining the likely adverse impacts of large-scale wind facilities. Industrial-scale projects must be safely sited.

On Thursday, May 7, the Orangeville Town Board held a public hearing on its proposed changes to their zoning laws. Over 200 people were estimated to be in attendance at the three-hour hearing. Despite the Wyoming County Planning Board's recommendation that Orangeville address the section specific to Wind Energy Conversion Systems (WECS) in a separate law, the Orangeville Town Board chose to ignore the county's recommendation. Predictably, the hearing became entirely about the wind issue.

You may not be aware of this but across America each year thousands of birds of prey are killed at wind farms. The public perception of wind turbines is that of slow moving blades turning in the wind on a ridge line. The power and danger of the prop design wind turbine is not well understood. Probably the hardest aspect for the public to grasp is that of "tip speed." The killer of eagles and all birds at wind farms is blade tip speed. This is what kills and this is what the wind industry does not publicize or put in their environmental documents.

Does the Town of Orangeville have the right to permit an industrial site that could harm a neighboring municipality? Who will defend the rights of Attica residents to clean water and an unpolluted reservoir? We all can appreciate the need for clean energy. However, we do not have the right to expose our neighboring municipalities to the drainage, runoff pollution and threat to water tables that will accompany Orangeville's industrial wind farm.

I would like to update residents of the Town of Alabama and nearby homeowners on the proceedings at the Town Council meeting on April 13. A petition was presented to town Supervisor Guy Hinkson and the council. The petition contained almost 300 signatures of Alabama residents who oppose the siting of industrial wind turbines within the town of Alabama.

I was recently contacted by councilman Steven Kula regarding a visit some of Prattsburgh's officials had to Chatham-Kent, Ontario to visit the Kruger Port Alma wind project. I do not doubt that the people Stacey Bottoni and Sharon Quigley spoke to on their recent visit to Chatham-Kent did like the Kruger turbines and had no issues with them. However, that is not the case for everyone living near the turbines. I am in contact with a family suffering severe health/quality of life issues since the turbines began operating.

The citizens of Cape Vincent face a very serious moral and ethical dilemma. To the landowners who have lobbied their local officials to pursue wind development at the expense of those not interested, I pose these questions.

The news that millions of dollars in liens against Noble Environmental power LLC and its leaseholders in Wethersfield, and across New York State, comes as no surprise to those of us who have been warning of Big Wind's shenanigans for years now. Many of these liens have been filed against the landowners who agreed to allow industrial wind turbines to be sited on their land.

We have recently learned about the wind turbine projects proposed for construction along the shores of the majestic St. Lawrence River in Hammond. I implore those who want to preserve and protect a way of life to speak up and take action before it is too late. For those readers who have never visited the Thousand Islands area of the St. Lawrence River in upstate New York, go and see for yourself Mother Nature's gift to all of us who have been blessed to spend time in that beautiful environment.

Rumor had it, that the Noble Corporation had liens against it. At the Wyoming County Court House, there are 19 mechanics liens filed in connection with the Noble Wethersfield Wind Park, owned and operated by Noble Corporation. A mechanic lien is filed: "when a person or business doesn't receive payment for a service or material." I wonder if the Wethersfield landowners who hold leases with Noble were aware that if Noble didn't pay debts, their property would have a lien placed on it?

Tufts economist, Gilbert Metcalf ran the numbers and found that the effective tax rate for wind is a minus 163.8 percent. In other words, every dollar a wind firm spends is subsidized to the tune of 64 cents from the government -- creating a free lunch for the Big Wind LLCs, and forcing taxpayers to pay for what is nothing less than a huge corporate welfare feeding frenzy. In spite of the fact that "America is now No. 1 in Wind Power" (as Invenergy boasted in a recent propaganda piece it sent out to Orangeville residents), over 25,000 industrial wind turbines later in the U.S., wind still contributes less than 1 percent of our nation's electricity.

It was Noble's windmill that fell to earth a few weeks back. The most the company will say: There was a "wiring anomaly." That's reassuring. That statement also came days after the event. Noble held no news conferences, took no reporters to see the damage, didn't go on camera to discuss the accident. Maybe they were hoping the story would just blow over.

But for town governments confronted with multimillion-dollar wind-farm proposals, there is ample reason to tread cautiously. The 34-turbine project in the towns of Prattsburgh and Italy proposed by EcoGen LLC, based in West Seneca, Erie County, has stirred passion, lawsuits and controversy. Now Prattsburgh is considering a temporary moratorium to halt any wind-farm construction for six months. It's a smart step.

As part of the widespread push for wind power, state and local governments are promoting "model ordinances" for siting industrial wind farms which supposedly establish limits for noise and other potential hazards. These are used to determine where wind projects can be located in communities which are predominantly rural and are often extremely quiet during the evening and night, one of the main reasons why people choose to live there.

As we look out across the river towards our Canadian friends on Wolfe Island, we see gigantic wind towers multiplying every day. These goliaths are over 40 stories high and have blades which swing over an area larger than a football field every three to four seconds. These towers take up vast amounts of real estate, and they cannot be concealed. Moreover they are noisy, create television interference, cast shadows and cause flicker as well as possible medical disorders.

But Noble should have been prepared to answer, as best they could, questions the public was frantic to ask. The public deserved the courtesy of reassurances that the company was earnestly trying to get that vital information for everyone's peace of mind. We're disappointed in Noble's response to the first calamity here of the wind-farm era. We certainly hope we can expect better in the future, with or without a calamity.

This crisis involves far more than just our officials (though they have not handled it very well). It includes every landowner who signed a land lease and was promised wind turbines on their property before there were regulations in place to govern them. It includes every brother, sister, parent, cousin or friend of them, who refuses to consider the negative impact of these turbines on their friends, neighbors and community as a whole simply because they don't want to deny these landowners this revenue windfall.