2/1/11 Walker's wind siting bill: What's the big deal? AND Contact your legislators AND Today's Extra Credit Reading List
Tuesday, February 1, 2011 at 11:05AM
The BPRC Research Nerd in Wind farm, Wind farm construction, Wind farm health effects, Wisconsin public service commission, walker wind siting wisconsin, wind energy, wind farm noise, wind farm noise, wind farm property value, wind siting, wind siting rules legislation and policy, wind turbine health effects, wind turbine noise, wind turbine setback, wind turbine wisconsin

WHAT'S AT ISSUE WITH GOVERNOR WALKER'S WIND SITING BILL:

 Pictured Above: Setbacks between 400 foot tall wind turbines and homes in a PSC-approved wind project Fond du Lac County Wisconsin. The yellow circles indicate the 1000 foot safety zone around each turbine.

Pictured Below: PSC approved Glacier Hills Wind Project under constrution in Columbia County. In this map from WeEnergies, red dots are turbine locations.  Each yellow circle containing a small red square is a non-participating home.

When they permitted the wind project, the PSC admitted that there were too many turbines around some homes but instead of asking for fewer turbines in those areas they asked the wind company to offer to purchase the homes. They did.

The PSC wind rules allow safety zones to cross property lines and allow a wind company to automatically use a neighbor's land as part of that safety zone. This creates a no-build and no tree planting zone on the property of a non-particpating land owner who must to get permission from the wind company to build a structure or plant a tree on his own land.

Senate Bill 9 helps to correct this problem.

The PSC statewide siting rules are to take effect on March 1st, 2011. They have setbacks of 1250 feet between homes and a 500 foot turbine. The rules allow a wind company to use a non participating landowner's property as a safety setback zone.

Senate Bill 9 increases the setback to 1800 feet between turbines and property lines. If a landowner wants a turbine closer he can enter into an agreement with the wind company. This bill gives some choice and a little more protection to the rural Wisconsin families who have no choice about living beneath the turbines.

PICTURED ABOVE: a map showing the noise level predicted for residents in Invenergy's proposed Ledge Wind Project in Brown County.  The yellow dots are homes. The black dots are wind turbine locations. The World Health Organization says nighttime noise should no louder than 35 dbA for healthful sleep. The deep blue areas indicate predicted turbine noise levels above 50 dbA. The purple areas indicate turbine noise levels of 50dbA.  

EXTRA CREDIT READING LIST

 

THE DIRTY COST OF CLEAN WIND

 Source: THE DAILY MAIL

CLICK HERE to read the whole story

"This is the deadly and sinister side of the massively profitable rare-earths industry that the ‘green’ companies profiting from the demand for wind turbines would prefer you knew nothing about."

Update on Big Wind Lawsuit
WIND POWER SHOW DOWN LOOMS

SOURCE: Ifpress.com CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

"While similar challenges have been heard in France, Great Britain and the United States, never have so many scientists, doctors and other experts been expected to testify.

“We’re not familiar with any other hearing that has brought the number and breadth of experts,” said Toronto lawyer Ian Gillespie, who will argue for the link between wind and health with the help of a team of 10 experts from as far away as Australian, New Zealand and Great Britain.

“This appears to be the most comprehensive hearing to date looking at the issue of human health,” Gillespie said."

 

Article originally appeared on Better Plan: The Trouble With Industrial Wind Farms in Wisconsin (http://betterplan.squarespace.com/).
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