June 25, 2013
Indiana, Letters

Leaseholders forget high-risk neighbors

Kokomo Tribune | June 25, 2013 | kokomotribune.com

Proponents of wind issues can debunk Google until they are blue in the face, but what about juwi’s experts who testified at the eight-hour BZA hearing?

One expert said, “the low frequency infrasound these turbines create does not harm human tissue.” I am a human, and everyone whom I know is as well. So why didn’t the big legal team just say humans, instead of human tissue? That would have been a lie, so they said, “human tissue.” Thank goodness … at least my parents’ skin isn’t at risk from wind turbines.

An expert testified “that in Canada, a city as big as Chicago had 60,000 people living within a similar footprint.” If any of you leaseholders live in northern Tipton County, when does your backyard ever sound like downtown Chicago? Also, my aging parents are not made up purely of human tissue. Like many high-risk residents, such as children, elderly or people with health issues, they have pre-existing medical conditions. Why has this nearly 100-turbine industrial wind farm proposal been in the works since 2009, and not one survey has been conducted by the county, nor juwi, nor the leaseholders, to identify high-risk residents, especially those living within the proposed wind farm footprint?

Wind farms are great on large tracks of land, like out in the desert, but people live here. My parents are spending their retirement here, staying in the county they have lived in most of their lives. Now the peaceful enjoyment of their property and retirement years is being put at risk.

How can I sit back and let the greed of the few try and risk everything my parents enjoy in their home surrounded by farmland? Industrial wind farms may be great in some locations where they are not intrusive, but not here. Some of these leaseholder families have been farming in this county for more than 150 years. I’m certain they are in no need of saving, and have their trade down to a fine science. How could these local leaseholders say they have compassion, when they clearly made a cold decision without knowing how many local high-risk neighbors they are asking to live within the footprint of an industrial wind farm? That’s more disrespectful than reading an opposing view in the newspaper.

Where is the compassion? Where is the survey to protect every resident, even the leaseholders, if they do in fact live within the footprint?

Matt Jarvis

Sharpsville


URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2013/06/25/leaseholders-forget-high-risk-neighbors/