No 'we the people' in green energy

Editor:

Wyoming County, once labeled one of the most beautiful counties in the U.S., has come under siege to the unscrupulous "snake oil" salesmen of the industrial wind corporations. Approximately 200 of these massive 400-feet industrial scale oil-filled wind turbines litter the landscape as if someone indiscriminately threw giant darts in a slipshod fashion irreversibly devastating green hills, forests, wildlife with a failed technology that produces less than 1 percent of the nation's electricity. Wind can't power any homes without back-up power (coal, gas or nuclear) and worldwide has not reduced CO2.

Were devious methods used by Invenergy by not informing the landowners and Town Board of Sheldon that they were substituting loads of industrial waste from the 100-year old brownfields formerly known as the Lackawanna Bethlehem steel plant? Gravel was agreed to in the DEIS (Draft Environmental Impact Study). This "slag" was dumped unceremoniously in agriculture fields for use as access roads to the turbines. Also consider that mercury contamination occurs as mercury is released from the limestone used as the raw material in the cement. When will the Department of Environmental Conservation safeguard we the people?

When a wind company slips into the back door of the town (or town hall as the case may be), thus the Attorney General's probe into public corruption between town officials and wind companies, a MET (meteorological) tower to measure the wind speeds in that region is put up. The wind company that stands to gain billions of dollars is the sole interpreter of the wind data and as the results are proprietary (confidential), there is no system of checks and balances. The townspeople never see the data. Invenergy states in a Buffalo News article (Oct. 26) that the Sheldon project will generate $20 million a year giving the wind company motive and opportunity to show wind speeds viable. Do the math! Sheldon receives approximately $800,000 to pay residents' town taxes -- a couple of dollars daily in residents' pockets while the wind sweeps away $20 million yearly tax free government subsidies and taxpayer money!! Why have wind-ron corporations been allowed to infiltrate local, state and federal government and push a failed technology at the expense of we the people?

Now here's the rub. First Wind pulled out its wind project in Attica/Bennington because "wind speeds (are) just not sufficient in that region to support building the project at this time." Ironically, opponents of these wind projects have given documented information that New York only rates 15th for wind in the U.S. Western New York wind maps show the winds of Wyoming County measure Class 1 to 2 winds, not Class 4 to 7 which is necessary to a viable project. One of Invenergy's Sheldon MET towers was located on Boxler property on French Road, just 2.8 miles down the same road from Bennington's MET tower. Oddly enough, First Wind didn't find wind speeds adequate to justify a wind farm in the area. Does the wind conveniently stop at Sheldon's town line? Now you decide who's lying!

Passing the buck, greenback energy. Where is the government of the people? The answer, my friend, is gone with the wind.

Cathi Orr

Orangeville