Wind farms: DeKalb County’s land and skyline are for sale 

DeKalb County, land and image, up for sale!

Buyer … EOSOL America! Location … Spain!

I’m usually a pretty positive person. But tonight my heart is heavy. I don’t usually jump on too many bandwagons, but Bob Culp’s article in The Star, Nov. 28, “Wind energy blowing in,” has finally convinced me to jump on the wagon against windmills in DeKalb County. It was a good article, Bob, and you got me thinking. I wish I had three pages of this newspaper to discuss in detail energy needs and viable solutions such as solar grids that are developing at amazing rates and will most likely make hydro and wind energy obsolete this century, but I don’t.

The article mentions the fact the energy companies “Will reshape northeast Indiana’s rural skyline.” Huh … That’s why I live here, I kind of like our rural skyline, at least to the west. I hope the residents of Auburn are ready to never see another beautiful northwest sunset. It’s OK, I’ve seen lots of sunsets off my back porch and sunrises off my front porch, but it makes me sad that my grandkids will not see them. At least unobstructed.

The article calls them “commercial wind farms.” Folks, I live on the farm, and I have visited commercial wind facilities. They are not “farm.” They are commercial electrical generating companies. The “farm” thing is just a way to slide through on an agricultural zoning so that landowners can avoid paying commercial real estate taxes. That keeps it lucrative for the farmer who leased out his ground and will allow them to dump (according to the article) 35 tons of steel and 50 trucks of concrete in each hole making the site very “unfarmable.” Remember that the new unfarmable ground now also creates what are called “Dead Zones” in the windmill industry. That is the thousands of acres that can now not be built on or used due to miles of underground transmission lines, setback ordinances and zoning restrictions.

The article mentions that Indiana is the fastest growing wind state in the country. Want to know why? Get on line and take a hard look.

Bottom line … other states with much higher wind potential have much stricter laws in place to protect their skylines.

The article mentioned Van Wert County, Ohio. I encourage you all to take a drive on U.S. 30 east of Fort Wayne. My wife and I did. We tried to imagine picking out a house and moving there around the “wind farms.” Then we tried to imagine selling our own farm to someone once the “wind farms” come to DeKalb County. We drove home with heavy hearts.

The article said “It’s pretty good for everybody.” Wrong, wrong, wrong. It’s good for EOSOL America, Spain period! Folks, it’s not even good for the farmers who are being convinced that the $5,000 pittance they are being offered per year along with a “possible” 2.5 percent profit will make up for the decline in their property value.

Residents of DeKalb County, as the article mentioned, your landscape and your skyline are about to change forever; is that what you want?

Attend the DeKalb County Plan Commission meeting on Dec. 21. Force this issue. DeKalb County … our land, our image … to sell or not to sell? That is the question.

Jed Freels, science teacher, farmer, sunset lover

Auburn