Letter: Beware the quiet invasion
To the Editor:
Due to the secrecy of wind corporations, many people are unaware of the extent of their activity in procuring leases for industrial wind turbines in the Flint Hills. However, citizens need to be aware that a "quiet invasion" may be taking place in your area that could seriously affect you.
— These are not your grandpa's windmills. Many people presume these new wind turbines are just somewhat larger than an old-fashioned windmill. Not so! These proposed turbines are absolutely gigantic: 35 stories high — taller than any building in Kansas. They will be visible from 20 miles away.
Their enormous bases (18 feet in diameter) must be anchored in concrete that goes 30-plus feet deep, requiring excavation of enormous amounts of soil and rock which must be disposed of (piled in slagheaps, dumped in creeks; we don't know), with roads running between each turbine and a vast network of trenched transmission lines. The destruction to surface from all this digging and dumping would be devastating to the fragile prairie surface. Multiply this by 60-80 turbines for each site, and you have widespread destruction.
— Who will clean up the mess? Another critical issue will arise in 20 years when these turbines become obsolete: Who can take down and haul away these gigantic machines, clean up the concrete and lines and at least try to restore soil and vegetation? We know from our experience in the oil field that cleanup can be a nightmare for landowners.
Attorney Stephen Garlowe stated at a recent Emporia forum on these issues, "One thing is certain, the company you start out with won't be the one you end up with." What if companies down the line can't afford to clean up? The result will be severe expenses and headaches for heirs of leasing landowners.
— Wind corporations have deep pockets filled by taxpayers. This is a volatile industry depending on heavy tax subsidies because of the inefficiency of wind power. What if our government with its growing budget deficits can no longer afford to support these corporations? What if they go bankrupt, leaving landowners without all their promised income and with a huge mess on their land? (Enron Corp. had large investments in wind.)
— Wind developments enrich a few, but harm their neighbors. Although the return on investment from agricultural income on Flint Hills property has stagnated, land values have continued to increase primarily due to the scenic value of these hills. The few landowners who sign for wind development may profit from them, but their neighbors will suffer significant reductions in the value of their property, and not just adjacent neighbors, but also those a number of miles away. In addition, neighbors could lose property rights through eminent domain to site additional transmission lines across their property.
— These are wind factories, not "wind farms." "Wind farm" is a dangerously deceptive and false euphemism promoted by wind corporations to soften their image. It is also a ploy to characterize these developments as "agricultural" in order to skirt zoning restrictions. However, we all know a "farm" grows plants and animals. There is nothing alive or growing in a wind turbine. These mammoth steel electrical generation complexes are industrial development, pure and simple.
— The Flint Hills are not a "backyard." The cliché phrase, "not in their backyard," is completely inappropriate to the Flint Hills. The Flint Hills, with their incredible ecological value as the largest contiguous area of the last three percent of the tallgrass prairie in all of North America, should never be equated with a suburban backyard.
— Keep our word — protect prairie in private ownership. When the proposed Prairie National Park threatened to take ranches by eminent domain, we ranchers claimed they didn't need to do this, because we would protect the prairie in private ownership. Now it's time to live up to that promise. Let's show that they don't need to take our land away from us in order for it to be safe. We will protect it in private ownership with agricultural, not industrial use.
— Solution: put wind factories on already-cultivated land. The Flint Hills are a disappearing jewel. Instead of putting wind factories on this rare and unbroken native prairie, they should be sited in the over sixty percent of Kansas that is already-cultivated, and where scenic value is not an issue. A good example is the Montezuma site in western Kansas, where local residents are welcoming these developments.
Real patriotism is finding clear-headed solutions that are in the best long-term interest of our nation. We all want to stop global warming, but it is no solution to solve one environmental problem by creating another. For more information, see www.protecttheflinthills.org.
Anne B. Wilson
Five Oaks Ranch, Elmdale
