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Windmills in Adams County Additional Resources |
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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.betterplan.squarespace.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.
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