Wind turbines vs property rights
Capital Journal | www.capjournal.com
‘Big Wind’ has set their sights on northeastern South Dakota. They have stealthily contacted local landowners, offering money for the rights to their property. Some landowners have accepted the easy money. However, the majority of land leased to wind developers, is land where the landowner does not reside. Those landowners (‘participators’) will not be subjected to the danger, irritation, and home value loss a turbine and transmission lines erected on that property bring to the people who live next to that leased land.
‘Non-participators’ are those who do NOT want to live in an industrial energy plant. Non-participators did not accept money to give up their land rights. They don’t want to be subjected to noise as loud as a chainsaw all day and night. They don’t want to incur the torture of sleep deprivation, shadow flicker, infrasound, and their homes being devalued to nothing (because who would buy a home in the danger zone of a 45 STORY growling menace?). The non-participators’ quiet enjoyment of their property is being stolen by the neighboring landowner for an easy payday. Our state and federal constitutions give us the right to quiet enjoyment of our property; those rights do not dissolve because of a check written to someone else.
These 45 story turbines are zoned as agricultural. There is NOTHING agricultural about them. They are industrial turbines. These turbines are NOT public utilities. Private investors are using government tax credits, our tax dollars, to disfigure our beloved area of the state with 1500 proposed wind turbines that do not power a local home or business, the energy is sent out of state.
Our county residents, who have paying taxes and building their futures in South Dakota, need protection from Big Wind. Save Our State.
Amber Christenson
Strandburg, SD
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2018/04/11/wind-turbines-vs-property-rights/