letters-to-the-editor.image_To the Editor:

(Sept. 2015) A Center for Rural Affairs (CFRA) Zoned Out study recommends letting state government decide our local issues.

It’s not a study. It’s a position paper written by a law student at the University of Nebraska who served as an extern for the Center for Rural Affairs, which is a pro-wind energy lobbying group. CFRA also supports the Rock Island Clean Line, which aims to force transmission towers on over 1,000 farmers and rural landowners without their consent.

The student paper lobbies removing local control and oversight to make it easier for big wind to force their turbines on small communities. Residents would be wise to learn what happened in Wisconsin when it decided to use a state-level zoning board for industrial wind turbines.

Big wind lobbyists used their money to create a pro-wind board to set wind-friendly zoning policies that were met with fierce resistance by communities and rural citizens throughout Wisconsin. The Brown County, Wis., public health board declared industrial turbines a human health hazard after many residents became sick as a result of the turbines’ sonic vibration effect on inner ears.

CFRA comes off as an “aw shucks” sort of grassroots group, but they are actually what’s called an Astroturf program, a type of lobbying group financed by special interest groups to soothe rural communities into accepting their gigantic industrial machines and power lines.

CFRA refuses to make known their donors, as the money trail could reveal their true intentions. Understand, 84 percent of wind development subsidies in the U.S. go to foreign companies.

Do you think China cares about the health damage industrial turbines do to our citizens, running power lines diagonally through farmers’ fields, stray voltage and the mass killing of our local songbirds, bats and eagles?

The world’s leading climate scientists believe renewable energy will never solve the carbon problem. Industrial wind barely removes a pebble from the global mountain of carbon.

Industrial wind is a different kind of “green” industry. It is predominantly foreign-owned, and the only green they care about are handouts from Uncle Sam’s wallet.

Contact your county supervisors and your political representatives to let them know you oppose wind lobbying groups like CFRA who want to take away our local decision-making, and please make known your support for the health of our citizens and the protection of our avian habitats.

Dr. Terry McGovern

By martha

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