Lock up your wind rights
Fairmont Sentinel | Apr 24, 2018 | www.fairmontsentinel.com
Here we go again. I strongly reject the false allegations in the recent front-page story about Tradewind Energy in the Sentinel. Tradewind is just another developer promising payments in trade for the total mess and divisiveness that pits neighbors against neighbors. Nothing tears a community apart like a wind farm that nobody wants, the country does not need and is built solely for the huge tax subsidies.
The article states the project will generate $1.2 million in tax revenue. This is only a projection that is not guaranteed. A more realistic approach is only $1.07 million, or 11 percent lower than Tradewind’s projections. Also, Martin County only gets 80 percent of this money, with the other 20 percent shared with the hosting townships. You can argue it all stays inside the county boundary, but let’s be specific as to who gets what.
Landowners who sign the lease only get $55 per acre. If you have a turbine on a 100-acre field, you only get $5,500? That is less than half the going rate that is usually paid. That is not enough money to be compensated for the lights, noise, broken tile and all of the pain associated with a windfarm. Basically, it’s only 15 bushels of corn you need to raise per acre to equal the small wind payment, plus you won’t have to worry about hitting it with your spray plane or the crooked road tearing up your fields.
Lastly, the noise issue they site in the article is laughable. They say the turbines will be 45 decibels and only as loud as a refrigerator. Hessler Associates is an acoustical engineering firm used by wind developers and the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission and is considered supportive of the wind industry. The PUC requested and provided state staff to collaborate with David Hessler to write Assessing Sound Emissions from Proposed Wind Farms & Measuring the Performance of Completed Projects. Hessler writes, “… It would be advisable for any new project to attempt to maintain a mean sound level of 40 dB(A) or less outside all residences …” “Under no circumstances … should turbines be located in places where mean levels higher than 45 dB are predicted by pre-construction modeling at residences.”
David Hessler’s results and recommendations are that “under no circumstances” should turbines exceed 45 dB, yet Tradewind is OK with residents living with these dangerously loud machines.
It’s time for the local landowners and residents to band together to lock up your wind rights to stop this project before they get started. If you need help killing this project, I am easy to find.
Dan Moore
former wind farm developer
Blue Earth
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2018/04/24/lock-up-your-wind-rights/