August 28, 2010
Letters, Pennsylvania

Bad windmill location

Daily American, www.dailyamerican.com 27 August 2010

Did the editor of the Daily American a few weeks ago consider all things before jumping on the “Berlin windmill bandwagon?” Did you consider the effect on the lives of the people who live where they want to put the “green” but they are really white, annoying and noisy wind turbines in their back yards? I wonder.

You see most of us who “choose” to live on top of a mountain do so because we like it here and the view is not all that bad either, so far. If we wanted to hear noise 24/7 and see things sticking up in the air with no view we would “choose” to live in a town, borough, city or next to an airport.

My question is, why do the people who have nothing to gain but aggravation, lower property values and sleepless nights have to suffer the consequences on the account of the ruling class?

I find it interesting that the comments made at the Berlin meeting, stated as far as the “noise” levels go, they are compared to a lawn mower or leaves rustling. Well I don’t know about you but would you like to hear a lawn mower running 24/7 and have the visual effects of a strobe light in your back yard coming through your windows, along with the whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, sound of blades spinning when you have been used to peace and quiet?

I wonder if the borough council members and the borough secretary would take a few hours out of their busy day and just go down Distillery Road, or sit at the top of the Glencoe Road. Then just sit and listen when the turbines are really turning. Then just imagine hearing that every day, day in and day out, some days even worse depending on which way the wind blows?

Maybe that would help you to form an honest opinion, unless your mind is already made up before telling the people who will have to live with your decision the rest of their lives, if they can or still want to live beside your windmills, that it’s not that bad, you can live with it.

Green energy does not have to be put on top of “Green Mountains” where we call home. There are plenty of reclaimed strip mined areas to put the wind turbines on where people do not call home. I’ll be the first to agree that we need affordable reliable forms of energy and it is debatable if wind turbines are just that, but the placement of these turbines has to be done with the consideration and respect of the landowners in the area and how it will affect their way of life.

By the way, I don’t want the residents of certain areas of a borough to be alarmed or concerned when a “green” John Deere shows up at 3 a.m. in the morning to mow your grass after all it’s just a little noise from a little ol- lawn mower and that’s nothing to be concerned about, really.

Jeff Hoover

Berlin


URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2010/08/28/bad-windmill-location/