Aren’t wind turbines graceful, like gymnasts doing cartwheels? Don’t they make environmental sense, better than smoke stacks burning fossil fuels?
But each wind turbine swallows an acre of ground, and that doesn’t count the roads needed to service them, nor does it count for transmission lines. Remember it takes coal to make the steel towers. The turbines run on sophisticated magnets that use rare earth metals, turning that region of China into a toxic wasteland. It takes ten years for them to earn back their carbon footprint. They last for fifteen.
People are driven to sleep in their basements and experience vertigo because of the infrasound and flicker. People could see their investment in their homes drop by $100,000 or be unable to sell because no one wants to buy a toxic home. Electric bills increase.
Imagine 150 500-foot tall turbines spread across DeKalb county. Sycamore, DeKalb, Genoa, Kingston, Kirkland, Malta -- how would you like to look at the sunset and see these gizmos sticking out of the best farmland in the world like an obscene gesture? At five hundred feet you will still see them over the trees in town. How will our county’s eagles soar around those turning blades let alone other birds and bats?
Yet this could well be the future of DeKalb County if our board writes an ordinance that makes it practical for this many turbines to be planted. We hope they hear us and stop the wind farm.
I’m Katie Andraski and that’s my perspective.
