Better Plan, Wisconsin

Gerry Meyer lives inside of the Invenergy Windfarm in Wisconsin's Fond du Lac County. He sent us these photos and a note about what the wind farm has done to the night sky where he and his family have lived for nearly 37 years.

He tells us the photos can't capture what these industrial scale machines look like at night because these are still photos and the blinking lights are flashing on moving machines. The environment this creates is often compared to an airport.  Add the jet engine sound of the turbines at night and you’ll understand what hundreds of Wisconsin families are now being forced to live with. 

If industrial wind farms had much of an impact on the reduction of green house gases then perhaps there would be a trade off. But because wind farms must always rely on fossil fuel burning power plants to function, and because they are less than 30% efficient at best, they have earned the nickname of "The SUV of renewable energy." Our own National Academy of Sciences reported in May of this year, that wind farms have a negligible effect on the reduction of green house gases. European studies have come to the same conclusion. Wind developers could care less. They will profit no matter what. Huge government tax incentives will see to that. And just where do those tax dollars come from?

Wind developers don't care about the problems of turbine noise and never mention what the sky will look like once the 400 foot turbines are up. They don't mention the flashing lights. They don't mention that the kids in this part of Fond du Lac county won't ever know a peaceful night sky again.

What do the wind developers mention?
Money. How much money will it take to buy your peaceful evenings?
How much is your night sky worth?
How much are your restful nights worth?
How much will the developers have to pay people in your community to give these things up for the rest of of your lives?

Gerry Meyer writes:
“When I look out I see most of the 86 turbines it is really sad.
The camera lens just doesn’t pick up what the eye can see.
I probably have mentioned we see not only our blinking lights at night but those from the wind farm in Johnsburg which are 18 miles away, and now they are putting up another 40+ turbines in the Eden area which is about 8 miles from us.
We can also see the turbines at Johnsburg and also ours when going south on hwy 41 from Oshkosh.
We can see them from south of here when we come from Milwaukee.
We have a friend in the Eden wind farm that bought 30 acres about 15 years ago, dug a nice pond and even got an old wind mill working and built a beautiful house. Now there are turbines on the front side across the road and on the back side of the house . They are considering selling. They have put so much work into this place and now this has happened."