Goodhue County deserved reconsideration
The Republican Eagle, www.republican-eagle.com 16 November 2011
The Republican Eagle, www.republican-eagle.com 16 November 2011
Like many people who live within the proposed AWA Goodhue Wind footprint, I had hoped that the Public Utilities Commission would reconsider their decision to ignore the local Goodhue County wind turbine ordinance. The many reasons not to permit this project include the environmental impacts of the project, the health and safety implications for footprint residents, and the financial burden that this project could inflict upon Goodhue County and its citizens.
The applicant has perpetually understated the impacts that this project will have and misrepresented Belle Creek as a vast cornfield with little wildlife and no major environmental concerns. Belle Creek Township shares its name with Belle Creek the designated trout stream and the Belle Creek Watershed District, which was established to preserve and conserve wildlife.
The PUC’s environmental scoping process is obviously flawed, very little attention was paid to the actual topography of Belle Creek and the presence of bald eagles and many other sensitive species in the footprint.
Most disturbing is that Goodhue County reviewed and presented to the PUC thousands of pages of documentation filled with actual evidence to support the ordinance and the PUC chose to believe that the sound and shadow flicker simulation studies presented by AWA proved this project would not harm us. Simulations are fictitious studies based on assumptions made by those conducting the simulations.
Fiction triumphing over facts, simply unbelievable, yet that is what happened.
Rick Conrad
Goodhue
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2011/11/16/goodhue-county-deserved-reconsideration/