Upset over prospect of wind farm

To the editor:
I just got home from the Jay County Planning Commission meeting (on Thursday, Dec. 13). To say that the meeting didn’t go well, from my viewpoint, would be an understatement.
Prior to this meeting we received a certified letter in the mail. The letter stated that “interested parties may offer an oral opinion at the meeting, or may offer written comments in support of or in opposition to the petition prior to or at the meeting.”
This gave me the impression that this was just another step in the process and that concerned community members would have have this opportunity to voice their concerns to the planning commission and that these concerns would be looked into and investigated prior to a decision being made. Unfortunately, I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Part way through the meeting we found out the decision was being made that night. I was very upset when I learned this and from the reaction of the other concerned citizens I was not alone.
Originally my first concern was the visual aspect that these huge wind turbines would have on the landscape. Do I want to look out on the horizon for the next 30 years and see these things?
During a search on the Internet I found a website called www.wind-action.org. After reading articles and stories, I soon realized the visual aspect was the least of my concerns. There are literally thousands of articles, stories, pictures and videos on this website dealing with or addressing issues such as sound, wind turbine syndrome, shadow flicker, property value loss, negative effects on wildlife, lawsuits against wind turbine companies (yes, NextEra is included) … the list goes on and on.
I printed some of the articles which I had intended to read or refer to when I had the opportunity to voice my concerns. Once I learned the decision was being made that night, I immediately stood up and gave my name. Before I could say more, Jim Zimmerman interrupted me and asked to explain the purpose of the meeting. Mr. Zimmerman said the purpose of the meeting was to make sure NextEra meets the county ordinance for wind turbines, which he said the company did. (A side note: The ordinance was written six years ago; no actual study was done. It was based off another county in Indiana that had wind farms). Mr. Zimmerman then let me continue.
By this time I was so upset I couldn’t gather my thoughts or articulate, so I asked if I could read an article that I had printed off about a couple who lived near a NextEra wind farm in DeKalb County, Illinois, who were dealing with noise issues created by wind turbines. Mr. Zimmerman nodded that I could. I felt my hands trembling and as I started to read the article my voice was shaking. Somehow I managed to get the article read. After reading the article I told the commission that my fear was that my family wouldn’t like living near these wind turbines and that if we decided to move our property value would have decreased to the point that we would be stuck and unable to leave.
Mr. Zimmerman said his son lives near a wind farm and that he has had no issue with noise and that when he visited his son he didn’t notice much, if any, noise. At one point Mr. Zimmerman said that although these wind turbines are big that at some point we would get used to the visual aspect of them.
Several others spoke about concerns and a continuance was asked for.
All of this was to no avail. It became clear the decision had been made and the meeting was a formality. The petition was granted and nothing was going to change that.
We were more or less told that we would just have to deal with it and we could show our displeasure during the next election cycle.
Once home, I read the front page of Thursday’s edition of The Commercial Review. It said NextEra will be paying the county a total of $996,000 over four years and that the commissioners and county council will decide how to utilize these funds. Wouldn’t this be considered a conflict of interest?
So what’s the score? A handful of landowners get paid between $4,000 and $10,000 annually per wind turbine on their property over the next 30 years and part of their property taxes paid by NextEra. The county gets $996,000. NextEra gets to have its cake and eat it, too; tax breaks all around. And families that live near wind turbines get told to deal with it.
Stephen Fouch Jr.
Portland[[In-content Ad]]