Wind turbines in the Levezou area were featured in December entitled Wind Turbines, a mixed blessing.
These pieces of monster engineering are blighting the sky-line all around the Bouloc and Salles Curan area.
There are 38 at the time of writing and more are still being erected.
Letters of petition about the level of noise generated by this project are being sent to those responsible including the office of the Conseil General.
His office has requested a stop on the work as it appears that a lot of maries are no longer happy about the project but as yet there doesn’t seem to be any let-up.
Where our property is situated, at the bottom of a heavily wooded hill, the trees absorb most of the sound, or it goes right over the top of us but in the village the noise of the turbines is quite loud.
The strange thing is that as soon as the sound and noise measuring equipment was set-up around the village of Bouloc the turbines spent more time off-line, and when on line were only rotating at half speed.
We were told that the companies responsible were trying to find ways of reducing the noise levels and were only running every other turbine for an hour at a time; surely that defeats the object of supplying sufficient alternative power?
I would like to know how the local community has, or is likely to, benefit from these turbines.
At the moment the only people benefiting from this situation are the land owners and farmers who have received compensation for the land used, the work carried out to assist installation, ie. roads across their land and disruption to the farming itself plus the annual rental of the land where the turbine has been installed, which, a good source tells, me is about €6,000 a year – a nice little earner for the land owners and farmers alike.
Then there is the damage that the heavy plant and equipment has caused to our village roads, verges, and road signs etc, who is going to put all that right and foot the bill?
The other issue of concern is how much is our property worth now that we are surrounded on all sides by these turbines?
PF
Bouloc
May 2008
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2008/05/30/wind-turbines-are-a-problem/