If a company added turbines like these close to your home, without consulting you at all, what would your concerns be? 

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Adams County Wind Ordinance
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A Visit to DeKalb County, IL

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Join Group: Advocates for Responsble Wind Development
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Safety & Health Issues
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Flicker, Noise,
& Air Evac

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Real Estate Values
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Crop Dusting & Agricultural Issues
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What You Can Do
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Other Helpful Links
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Contact Us:
responsible.development@hotmail.com

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Quick Links:

Landowners individually named in lawsuit re: DeKalb, IL County Board Wind Ordinance, 1-9-2010

A Wisconsin farmer talks about his regrets

A medical doctor's plea
for longer setbacks, based on recent evidence,
Jan. 8, 2010

Follow up info for Quincy WGEM news quote:  Safety manual for turbine safety workers warns against 1300 feet perimeter, or being in line with revolving blades

Noise contaminated home assessed at 50% previous value

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We are not against wind energy.  Rather, this website includes important questions about the best ways to develop our Adams County Wind resources, and it reflects our obvious concern that the Adams County Wind Ordinance fails to protect the interests of all of our residents.  The public deserves a far better deal than this ordinance provides.

Thank you for considering this information; we promise to respect those who have differing opinions, and we hope for the best future for our beautiful and beloved Adams County.

 
 
 

Windmills in Adams County
Additional Resources

Additional General Resources:   

This video is a good newscast, giving both sides of the story in Wisconsin, a place that used 1000 foot setbacks, where many people are now upset about it.  To learn from their experience, click on the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiSpToi982A

This video is about a lawsuit over the noise and vibration of wind turbines.  There are many videos about noise, including some that argue that the noise is not a problem and even ridicule people who say it is.  The degree it bothers an individual apparently depends on factors like wind direction, speed of turbine, sensitivity of that person, and the direction the turbine is facing at the time...although the closer someone lives to a turbine, the more likely they are to experience noise as a significant problem.   Here's the video...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsCy_MgXrn0

New York's Attorney General created a 8-page "Code of Conduct" mandating that in New York, the process of bringing a wind farm to any county must be an open, ethical, public process.  (We do not have such a policy in Illinois at this time.)  Here are the rules they follow in New York: 

http://www.oag.state.ny.us/media_center/2008/oct/WindCODE%20FINAL.pdf

The following link is to a video of a turbine exploding after the brake failed.  While not common, this and other catastrophic failures such as fire, collapse, or throwing broken pieces of a blade have occurred already, and as equipment ages, may happen more often over time, creating a hazard of falling debris over a 1/4 mile area (far more than 1000 feet).  Catastrophic failures like this and "ice throw" are rare events that have never killed anyone to date.  However, as wind farms multiply, greater setbacks could help prevent these kinds of events from harming nearby homes or people.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3FZtmlHwcA&NR=1

Below is a link to a video about "ice throw," the phenomenon of ice building up on the blades of a turbine, and then as the ice breaks loose, chunks of it being thrown some distance (some reports have that distance at up to 1500 feet).  In theory, the blades are turned off when ice builds up on them to prevent this; the video shows that is not always the case.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Nws9odq7S8&NR=1

Other websites of interest:

A Few of the Largest Grassroots or Citizen Action Groups:

www.windaction.org

www.wind-watch.org

www.betterplan.squarespace.com


See the websites of the developers who are planning now to build their wind farm in our county:  Global Winds Harvest & Acciona

www.Globalwinds.com

www.acciona-na.com 

Note that on their website, Acciona says they have "embraced a policy of corporate responsibility. This means we hold ourselves accountable for the impact our activities have on our customers..."  Given the questions raised in this website, we would like to be informed more specifically what that will mean for the people of Adams County.