Letter to the Editor

On October 10 the St. Joseph News & Press published an article concerning Madison County Iowa. It seems that this is another county under siege by the wind turbine developers. The article reported that their county health board had passed a resolution calling for wind turbines to sit at least 1.5 miles from homes and that the commissioners passed a one year moratorium to further investigate. The developers have stated that the set back is too restrictive and is about five times greater than what they have proposed. 

So we have to ask ourselves, “What’s more important, the health and welfare of the community, or fattening the pockets of the developers with the tax incentives wasted on wind energy?” Some may argue that we are also getting “green” energy. This energy really isn’t “green” as I described in a letter to the editor published in February. Also, when you look at the meteorological data for this area, you see that a sustained wind of at least 10 mph (required for a wind turbine to operate at minimum load) only occurs about 30% of the time. So we really aren’t getting much energy for our money. The developers don’t care about energy production; their money is made from our tax incentives.

The only other potential “benefit” is the tax money paid into the local budget. That is the only reason that the county and school officials are in favor. The truth is that our communities have done well over the years without this money and we shouldn’t be sacrificing the health and welfare of the rural areas for greed.

Fred Campbell

5937 SW Bray Rd

Clarksdale, MO 64430

816-393-5214