Take a hard look
The Suffolk Times, suffolktimes.timesreview.com 2 February 2012
Each August, my husband, daughter and I travel to my cousin’s house to enjoy an idyllic family gathering around a pristine North Fork lake – Laurel Lake. The setting is so peaceful that we have been considering moving from California to live there permanently.
With great chagrin, we heard this week that the Suffolk County Water Authority, which owns the adjacent tract, is attempting to install a 125-foot wind turbine. This has been undertaken in a rather fast and covert manner and only by luck did the lakeside property owners become aware of their intention.
If this were going to be an asset to the community, it would have been pursued in a more reflective manner with adequate research and community outreach. There is a new picture emerging in my imagination; the lake, sunsets and a wind turbine with ducks being sucked in. Needless to say, we will be rethinking any sudden real estate investment.
But it’s not only aesthetic considerations that make this proposal questionable and ripe for re-examination. The heavily wooded location, the wildlife, the inaccessible unpaved road may not be appropriate for wind turbines, which seem to catch fire with alarming regularity. These inaccessible fires are not put out, but allowed to burn out to the detriment of people, homes, trees, plants and wildlife.
It would seem that proper consideration be given to the wildlife living in and around the lake, as well as to the homeowners surrounding the lake whose lives and property values will be adversely affected by this change.
There needs to be a thorough examination of all the possible effects, both positive and negative, of this sudden environmental transformation. I don’t think anyone really imagines noisy, intrusive and potentially dangerous turbines in an area such as this one.
Why is this proposal being rushed through?
Alisa Taylor and Ron Hutchinson
LOS ANGELES
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2012/02/02/take-a-hard-look/