Research before allowing wind farms
North Platte Telegraph | August 18, 2016 | www.nptelegraph.com
If they cost tax dollars to build, can’t survive without subsidies and are built next to people who don’t want them, why do companies keep building wind towers? To provide clean power? What about all the coal, iron ore and fossil fuel it takes to build them? Warren Buffett is on record saying the only reason to build them is for the tax credits. He is building them as fast as he can in Holt County right now and elsewhere. Yes, everyone has to pay for them because of the tax credits. Adding insult to injury is that the ones who build them on their land seldom live on that land.
Before anyone signs a lease with a wind developer and before any county board approves a project, they should check the facts about these projects, not just on the Internet, but by interviewing people who are living near existing projects.
Google and see if you find anyone who says, “I am so glad I signed the rights to my land away and I received everything they promised.” The Internet is full of horror stories from people who live by them. Look for research by Dr. Salt from Washington State University of St. Louis. Search about Shirley wind farm, and for Brown County, Wisconsin. Google bankrupt wind farms. These are just a few.
I live in rural Antelope County and it is sad how the developers have steamrolled our county. Nearly 200 towers are already built, another 160 have been approved and they are still signing leases across the county. They say there will be so much tax money coming into the county; well, our land taxes have not gone down yet, and it seems there are also a lot of unexpected costs: roads, bridges, extra time by county employees to complete and file paperwork.
Don’t let your county become the next target. Don’t let the destruction of your fragile Sandhills and the Ogallala Aquifer be the next conquest of wind tower developers. The developers will not be the ones living with the consequences of tearing up the grass, destroying the views, damaging the health of people and livestock and driving up taxes.
Listen to Warren Buffett for the real reason to build them. It isn’t for the environment, it is for the money. Stop this waste of tax money now. Until you live in a wind tower project, you have no idea how real the problems are.
Why am I writing this from the other end of the state? Because I am truly interested in the environment and other people; I don’t want to pay more taxes; and our farm and our house use water from the Ogallala Aquifer.
Wind towers do not belong near people, pets, livestock, wildlife or the Ogallala Aquifer! Just say no.
Judy Wilcox
Tilden
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2016/08/18/research-before-allowing-wind-farms/