March 18, 2016
Opinions, Tennessee

Is a wind farm coming to Glade area in future?

Windmills on our minds | Commentary by Jay McCarthy | Special to The Vista | March 18th, 2016 | vistanewspaper.com

Renewable energy, tax revenue, cheap energy, new jobs, save the world! All great things you want to hear, right?

These are the words that warm politician’s pockets.

Especially when it isn’t built in their back yard and the federal government is giving away 100s of million dollars of your tax money to get our country deeper into debt.

Sounds like a great deal, doesn’t it?

Now for some facts; I would like the residents of FFG to understand and research wind farms especially if you live around Druid, Dorchester and Fairfield Glade North along the Bluffs.

Like me, if you enjoy the serenity of your deck with breathless ever changing views of the serene skies with the mountains in the background that all could be coming to an end. If you enjoy the flocks of birds that migrate each season, and the quietness of this special place.

If you enjoy the frogs that croak in harmony with the Katydids, that all could be coming to an end sooner then you think.

Also if you lived in this area for more then a season and enjoy the outdoors, you have probably noticed that the valley or mini canyon, acts as a giant amphitheater or amplifier, which allows you to hear sounds that often carry for miles that normally you wouldn’t hear at all.

You can often hear geese in the early morning announcing their entry into the lakes from miles away. Or, in the night you can hear the owls hooting from great distances.

The main reason is that since the area carries sound like an amphitheater or amplifier you can hear these sounds that normally wouldn’t carry even half the distance they normally do.

You ask why I mention this? Mainly because when 23 wind turbines the size of a small skyscraper line the mountains behind our homes – their props spinning 24 hours a day – the sound they make will inevitably be heard by all of us.

And it’s the sound you don’t hear that does the most damage.

Its called INFRASOUND. This is the sound that is primarily picked up by your inner ear and causing many people problems that I describe below.

It generally affects the part of your inner ear hearing that picks up low frequency sound waves.

What has been discovered is that with the recent push of wind farms that need little or no environmental approval are going up around rural areas like ours effect up to 20% of the people.

The adverse affects by the infrasound produced by the turbines have been know to cause the following effects on humans. Many people have experienced sleep disturbances, panic, chronic sleep deprivation leading to blood pressure elevation, memory dysfunction and more.

Alec Salt, Ph.D. of Cochlear Fluids Research Laboratory from Washington University in St Louis has written this and other information on the hazardous effects that Wind Turbines have had on humans.

There is also a lot of information that also documents the negative effects these turbines have on all wildlife species including your pets.

I along with several other concerned residents have attempted to get our board and local politicians to ask the Wind Farm Company to move the location away from the mountain ridgeline, so it will not have any chance of affecting us – but they have so far refused to budge.

Remember once they are erected the company disappears and we are stuck with the results forever.

It is important that you visit some of these websites so that you can listen first hand, the stories directly from people like us about their experience from wind farms that were installed were they live.

Many of them were sold on the idea that this was a good thing for the community.

Unfortunately, shortly after the turbines were installed the residents found out that the people who sold them on the wind farm along with the Politicians LIED. And they were helpless to do anything about it because the POLITICIANS bit hook line and sinker.

A very good website for you to hear some stories how several families were affected by a wind farm please watch.: www:wind-watch.org.

On this website you will be able to watch stories first hand of people that were affected. You be the judge.

I sincerely hope after seeing the life changing effects that these turbines had on other communities you will let our Board know they should take immediate action in letting Mayor Carey know that we, the residents, don’t want them to gamble with our quality of life.

Our Board should let them know that we oppose the proposed location of the turbines along the mountain ridge that can be seen known as Rock Mountain. We request that the wind farm location be moved to a more remote location because of the negative effects that many FFG will experience.

This is not something that is worth risking because once people start experiencing problems you can be assured property values in these affected areas will drop like a bad check.

As the largest taxpayer in Cumberland County they would have no other choice but to do so and find an alternate site so that they will not have ANY chance of affecting Fairfield Glade.


URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2016/03/18/is-a-wind-farm-coming-to-glade-area-in-future/