Make a decision already so the voters can finally decide the fate of wind energy in Lincoln County;
County commissioners decided Tuesday to punt until 2017 on a set of proposed restrictions on wind turbines in the fast-growing county that includes the southern edge of Sioux Falls.
The commission voted to study ways to refine the rules, which would require turbines sit at least three-quarters of a mile from homes and meet low-decibel sound limits.
We all know, no matter what they decide, voters will ultimately make the decision. And I think with the large voting block in Sioux Falls, they would approve the wind farm. But it really shouldn’t be that way, this is a simple decision to make;
Commissioner Jim Schmidt said the county’s voters deserve a decision that accounts for all the potential ripple effects of wind turbines.
“Every time we listen to testimony, it becomes a more complicated issue,†Schmidt said.
Jim, first off it is not complicated, and even if it was, you have had two years to do your research. It is very easy to contact universities and other scientific groups to get the information you need, which would all lead to the fact that wind turbines have no harmful health effects unless one fell on you.
This comes down to two very simple points, Money and Asthestics.
• Money; The county, the state and landowners would make money from the project, which would benefit many people. This is a fact.
• Some people don’t like what they look like. This really is the only sticking point in the matter. As a person who is an artist and collects art, I do understand and defend people who think wind turbines are ugly. I get it. But the same could be said about barb wired fences and power poles in the country landscape. As I said to a detractor once, ‘I would much rather look at a wind farm peacefully churning in a meadow then plumes of smoke rolling from a coal plant or refinery.’
But government officials are not art critics, their duty is to rule on law and what is best for people within those laws. Wind energy is good for the public and the economy. Stop being chickenshits and make an easy decision.
Royal Dutch Shell has refocused its business plan more so on wind energy. Oil prices are low. Hence sacrificed profit. They discovered some offshore platforms can be converted to wind turbines. Not sure but wind is starting to look like cheap energy. If Lincoln County keeps fighting it, they’ll have horses when we’ve transitioned to electric cars.
Schmidt’s a slippery one. Last year he justified approving a new rural residential development by proclaiming that it would provide “affordable housing” the community was in need of. Minimum price of houses in the development, as touted by the developer in pitching it to the adjacent city, was $500-600K. Then consider that “country living” on a one acre lot, as it was also pitched entails a LOT of driving to get to any retail or services, and……. that’s Schmidt’s idea of “affordable”.
In this report is why I have refused to live in Lincoln County. The anti-growth, anti-modernism of the longtime county residents has always been hard to stomach.
This is all easy to say when you won’t be living near the turbines. As I recall, a couple of years back people in the southern area of Sioux Falls, in Lincoln County, refused to have a small siding (to be used for switching trains) near the railroad tracks between Sioux Falls and Harrisburg. Apparently, the “not in my backyard” argument is OK for some but not for others.
North County – Long-time residency does not automatically go hand in hand with anti-growth or anti-modernism. My family and I have been residents since the 1870’s. And while, yes, some of us are the no-to-anything-new sayers – most are not. And in reality – if you look into just WHO it is that is offering up the resistance to wind development in South Lincoln County – it is not the long-time resident farmers. It is the relative new-comer “country-living enthusiast” acreage and hobby farm crowd.
Again, Thomas, look at just exactly WHO it is that lives in that proposed switch-yard area and you’ll find the resistance is NOT from the long-time farmer residents, but from the newly “countrified” acreage owners.
We have landowner friends that have windmills on their farm property and take in $60,000+ per year in lease payments from them (the ones south of Highmore). I asked him if it is worth it. His response was ‘frick no!’ (that is not the words he used)…..Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.
@matt stab: Why does your fried say it is not worth it?
Yet again Southdacola lets his self interest spin his moral compass. If they would have voted to stop the turbines you would have cried they were backwood hicks, but when they delay to study more you find them to be chickenshit.
You think its deplorable that spellberg park folks had to accept a pool or southside to be ramrodded a Walmart but the rural folks cant decide whats in their neighborhood? Your a nimby when it suites your ideas.
Speaking as a southeast side city dweller, if this does come to a vote, we urban folks should not get to vote on this matter. I believe wind power has it’s place, and the townships in which they could be in, should be the ones to decide.
Rufusx, yep there are small average owners who don’t want the wind farms, but there are also longtime residents who also do not want the wind farms. As for Dacola, why do some people advocate against industrial farming but advocate in favor of industrial wind farms? If the government wants to subsidize wind power, why not a subsidy for individual people to put up small turbines at their own places and let them sell that wind power back to the grid? An industrial wind farm smells of further advancement of the 1%and you are helping that 1%.
Teatime: He said you never get used to the noise – they are quite loud, nor are they ever ‘pretty’ to look at. They live less than 1/4 mile from 3 of them. The one odd thing I discovered from him is that every day someone drives to every windmill to pick up and count dead birds. I do not know if that is a permanent thing or not. He is counting the days until the lease is up, unfortunately for him if he makes it he will be a very old man.