August 9, 2016
Letters, New York

Keep wind project out of my backyard

The Buffalo News | August 9, 2016 | www.buffalonews.com

I am a NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) and proud of it, because my backyard is home to thousands of migrating birds. My backyard is a refuge for bald eagles, once protected by a government that has apparently forgotten that it has taken years for them to re-establish their natural habitat. My backyard is the source of the public water supply for Lyndonville and Yates.

My backyard is also the place a thousand humans call home. It is not the sparsely populated wasteland that Apex would like Albany to think it is, but a land of rich earth, producing corn, wheat, vegetables and fruit. My backyard is home to huge dairy and beef herds that feed our nation. My backyard is the shoreline of Lake Ontario, known for tourism, fishing, recreation, dark skies, state parks, historic buildings and Thirty Mile Point Lighthouse.

My backyard is in the Town of Yates, Orleans County, where the great majority of taxpayers and residents have said “no,” along with our neighboring Town of Somerset, Niagara County. We do not want our area to become an industrial wasteland. We do not want our health compromised. We do not want our eagles, bats and migratory birds slaughtered. We do not want our dark skies cluttered with flashing lights. We do not want to be subjected to the torture of shadow flicker, infrasound and incessant wind turbine noise. We do not want our rights as landowners removed by Article X.

I am a taxpayer, and I am convinced that this is the wrong place for Apex or any other tax-grabbing company to construct an industrial wind project.

Cynthia Hellert

Lyndonville


URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2016/08/09/keep-wind-project-out-of-my-backyard/