Better Plan, Wisconsin

What happens when rules are written by those who stand to gain financially from the outcome?

Wind siting council member Larry Wunsch has been living with a 400 foot tall wind turbine sited just 1100 feet from his door for over two years.

Council Member Dwight Sattler lives about half a mile from the closest turbine to his house. He says he can sometimes hear them, but at half a mile it doesn't bother him.

At half a mile, no problem. At 1100 feet, the noise is bad enough to cause the Wunsch family to put their home up for sale.

Longer setbacks and lower noise limits mean greater protection for rural Wisconsin residents, but less money for those with financial interests.

Should the wind siting council consider what Larry Wunsch has to say when creating siting recommendations for our state?

Or should they follow Wind Sitng Council chairman Dan Ebert's lead and gloss over the issues to speed up the process in order to create guidelines which protect business interests instead of residents of rural Wisconsin?

SECOND FEATURE:

ANOTHER 'CAUSE UNKNOWN' TURBINE BLADE FAILURE IN ILLINOIS

SOURCE: The Times, mywebtimes.com

July 27, 2010 Dan Churney,

Barbara Ellsworth was troubled, but not surprised Saturday morning when she spotted a broken blade on a wind tower near her home.

“We thought, ‘Hah! We knew that would happen.’”

Ellsworth and her husband Mike live three miles south of Marseilles on East 2450th Road, about 1,200 feet from a wind turbine and about 2,500 feet from one of the two towers damaged during the weekend, possibly by high winds. Chicago-based Invenergy Wind operates the string of towers that run through southeastern La Salle County.

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