A fight to preserve the Sandhills
North Platte Telegraph | July 19, 2016 | www.nptelegraph.com
My husband and I have been leading a fight to keep wind farms out of the fragile Sandhills. Support is growing to stop this and two other wind farms proposed by Bluestem Energy, LLC. We have seen maps of many more across the Sandhills that are planned along with the R, T, and U lines that NPPD will be constructing to carry energy.
We are against wind energy because its carbon footprint is huge, it cannot function without subsidies, wind turbines are an eyesore that will stand forever because they are too costly to remove, and countries in Europe are already seeing the cost to their economy and people. But our fight is to keep these beautiful Sandhills of Nebraska the way they are and to protect the fragile balance that the ranchers have carefully managed for years. The major disturbance of the land that accompanies the building of roads, wind turbines and traffic associated and the transmission lines will destroy the land.
Now we are being attacked by the people who started the wind energy movement in Cherry County.
I received an email in which I learned that Cherry County Wind’s board told investors that they wanted to come on our land and determine if they could place towers where we could not see them from our house. They said we would not allow them on our land and would not work with them.
First, Cherry County Wind did not EVER contact us. Not before we knew about the wind farm, nor after we knew about the wind farm. NEVER. George Johnson visited my husband in our home the day before we got the first conditional use permit, 13 days before the hearing, to tell him about the proposed wind farm, and my husband told George that he would try to stop it.
We love the Sandhills. It’s where we chose to live and would choose to die. This is NOT a fight to save just our view. This is a fight to save “all of the Sandhills.” There is no other place like it on earth. It is about to be destroyed.
Cherry County Wind’s board is trying to discredit us because they never anticipated a fight. They have lied to us, to their investors and to the public.
There will undoubtedly be more hearings, and I encourage everyone to come to hear what is going on in this county. This is no time to be complacent. We all need to take our county and our country back.
Carolyn and LeRoy Semin
Kilgore
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2016/07/19/a-fight-to-preserve-the-sandhills/