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
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2008/07/15/dangers-of-wind-turbines/