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Lenexa neighborhood outraged by proposed wind turbine
Credit: By Laura McCallister, Multimedia Producer | By Dave Jordan, News Reporter | KCTV | July 18, 2013 | www.kctv5.com ~~
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Translate: FROM English | TO English
Neighbors in a quiet Lenexa, KS, community are worried about their quality of life being affected by a noisy wind turbine that could soon move into a nearby area.
An area near Kansas Route 7 and Prairie Star Parkway in western Lenexa is the site where the wind turbine is slated to be placed by Suburban Lawn and Garden. It’s going to power their 26-acre nursery, and also provide backup power in case of outages. The company said it won’t be an eyesore or distraction to the community, but one neighbor isn’t so sure.
Ed Wiseman has lived in the Reserve Subdivision in Lenexa for seven years.
“Nice peaceful neighborhood. Great. You see the little babies right there on the corner. They won’t be able to stay on the corner and speak to their mom without that thing right there,” he said.
The thing he is referring to is a wind turbine used to provide green energy to communities, but the turbines get loud. Wiseman isn’t just a concerned neighbor, he’s a retired engineer who claims to have researched decibel levels caused by the turbines.
“That’s probably the revving of a jet engine inside of an airport. That’s probably about what that is,” he said.
But Matt Steuck, vice president of Suburban Lawn and Garden said the air pollution problem isn’t true. He acknowledges that he applied for a special use permit with the city of Lenexa for a turbine, but said it won’t be anything like the big, loud, noisy ones most think of.
“Those turbines produce megawatts of energy. We’re looking for a turbine that produces kilowatts, so much, much smaller. Those turbines can be 400-feet tall, this turbine is going to be 100-foot tall at its peak,” Steuck said.
He also addressed the noise fears.
“We’re looking for something that doesn’t produce a noisy effect. We want something that, when customers come in, they won’t say, ‘what is that constant humming sound?'” Steuck said. “We’re not going to make the neighbors mad with our new store. It doesn’t make sense for us.”
A spokesperson for Lenexa said nothing has been decided yet. A planning commission meeting is slated for next month, where they will allow the public to speak and then the commission will make a recommendation to the city council.
Wiseman said he is planning to meet with city leaders Friday about the wind turbine.
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