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Dangers of wind turbines 

This letter concerns John Broom and Martha Sorohan’s front page article on the Wind Turbine Project, “Blowing in the Wind?” in the June 26, 2008, Courier.

A member of Presque Isle Audubon Eagle Watch Team, Ripley, N.Y. Hawk Watch, and Hawk Migration Association of North America, I am concerned that this project will be very bad for Conneaut’s people and the migrating and resident wildlife. I was looking to purchase a home in Conneaut, but this project has put that on hold for now and possibly for good.

I frequent the Roderick Wildlife Preserve – PA Gamelands #314 which form the Pennsylvania border with Ohio. This preserve has 3,200 acres which will basically be destroyed by this wind turbine project. I particularly watch the now large number of bald eagles that forage and roost in this important habitat from Conneaut Harbor into the Pennsylvania Gamelands.

On June 30, at approximately 3:30 p.m., and for over 15 minutes, I observed 14 individual bald eagles flying in the area – 11 on the Ohio side and 3 on the Pennsylvania side. The eagles were at relatively low elevation and flew inland and also over the water. They undoubtedly would be killed by these 45-story high wind turbines (WTs). Bald eagles are still a threatened species under state law.

The WTs have a blade diameter the length of a football field and when they have sufficient wind to run, the rotors are spinning at between 160-200 MPH at the tips.

The World Health Organization recommends residences and businesses be located at least 1.5 kilometers away from a WT project because of the illness called Wind Turbine Syndrome. Wind Turbine Syndrome is cause by low frequency sound waves and noise emitted by the WTs. Dr. Nina Pierpont, M.D., a world recognized expert on Wind Turbine Syndrome, says the separation distance should be 1.5 miles or more depending on the terrain.

In addition:

* Home prices will generally fall by 40 per cent or more around the WT project.

* WTs cause visual blight to the area.

* WTs kill bats, birds, and beneficial insects (bees, butterflies, dragonflies etc. One of the true non-industry-funded studies (and thus non-biased) showed 3,500 bats killed during a six-week period at the Mountaineer WV project (44 WTs, of which usually 20 per cent are down for maintenance and repairs.)

* WTs are so heavily subsidized by the states and federal government, i.e., taxpayers, and electrical users that project would disappear immediately without those significant subsidies.

* Electric rates will actually go up after a project is built because of the high cost of wind energy.

For each WT, about four acres are clear cut; thus, four acres of valuable oxygen-producing and carbon dioxide-absorbing trees are gone. Thus, WTs actually add to carbon dioxide levels and certainly do not reate oxygen.

There is a lot more as well. I have been to Canada twice (Port Bruce, directly across Lake Erie from Conneaut) to see that project as well as New York, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania WT projects. I have tried to help inform people in Ripley-Westfield, N.Y. what the proposed project there will do to the community.

A good source of information about everything I am writing about is National Wind Watch www.wind-watch.org

Tom Wasilewski
Edinboro, Pa.

Conneaut Courier

10 July 2008

This article is the work of the source indicated. Any opinions expressed in it are not necessarily those of National Wind Watch.

The copyright of this article resides with the author or publisher indicated. As part of its noncommercial educational effort to present the environmental, social, scientific, and economic issues of large-scale wind power development to a global audience seeking such information, National Wind Watch endeavors to observe “fair use” as provided for in section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law and similar “fair dealing” provisions of the copyright laws of other nations. Send requests to excerpt, general inquiries, and comments via e-mail.

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