I signed up with a wind farm developer in 1997 to host wind turbines on my farm. I thought it was good for the planet and as I was getting on a bit in years, it would be a nice supplement to my retirement income. I was so convinced that it was a good idea that I also convinced my neighbours and my brother (who was vehemently against anyone tampering with his land) to sign up to an option to lease to host wind turbines. The option to lease was a binding document that prevented us in any way from backing out of the deal. I had no concerns with the document because I was informed confidently by the developer that I would not hear the turbines above the ambient noise level. That subsequently proved to be very much a lie.
The ‘poor me’ argument doesn’t resonate very well.
Pity that none of these landowners gave any initial thought about how the mills (or panels) that provided them with some extra coin would affect their neighbours.
Not one thought that your neighbours will be paying ridiculous hydro rates so that you can get a monthly cheque; no thought or care about what it might do to local real estate values; a total absence of concern about noise and other health concerns; and not one worry that the accumulative effect of all this nonsense would be a much poorer place for future generations.
I agree. Not a hint of sympathy for this person. He’s sucking up taxpayer dollars in the solar scheme and in the wind scheme. He is simply GREEDY. He did not think at all about his neighbors, and I would imagine is not too popular with them. The neighbors should get together and run him them of the community with pitchforks!
Mr. Mortimer is about to discover that’s only the beginning of his troubles. It’s a lease agreement. Unless specified in the contract, the landowner is stuck with the dead hulk after the end of the useful operating lifetimes of wind turbines, however long or short that may be. If it’s not specified, there will be no decommissioning and removal by the wind company.
Years ago, when these things were just starting to be the answer to all our clean energy hopes, my husband told me how useless they were. He was a power engineer and knew what he was talking about. He didn’t know about the health risks but he did know how inefficient they were and that we would never recoup the cost to build and maintain them.
Our current government knows what my husband knew. The only reason they continue down this path is for political reasons. The media sound bites touting their clean energy initiatives make them look really good to ordinary Saskathewanians.
Matt, that would be after a applying a liberal dose of tar and feathers.
He was lied to . by your logic all those smokers who get sick and die because tobacco lied for years should be tarred and feathered also.
…I was informed confidently by the developer…
That kind of says it all.
More accurately for the analogy BRD:
All those smokers who made others sick and dead because they believed the lies… even after mounds of evidence to the contrary should be tarred and feathered also.
But then if we did that, there is so many other situations where it would be applied.
“I was informed confidently by the developer that I would not hear the turbines above the ambient noise level.”
Yeah, but that confident information was not written into the binding contract as a make or break clause of the contract. All he could see was the $ signs. Do not take oral assurances over written if there is a written contract, is the lesson.
I was approached by a wind farm flim flam man about 10 or 12 years ago. I told him to bugger off. I added him to the pile of discarded billboard guys, magic soil amendment lads, and assorted other snake-oil salesmen. I possess a letter written by my great, great grandfather, passed to me by my grandpa, recommending hard work and warning against such easy-buck-ar$$holes. It’s nothing new. Healthy skepticism, independent research and common sense are handy survival skills.
This is an Australian story.
It’s time to hear similar Canadian stories.
“Healthy skepticism, independent research and common sense are handy survival skills.”
Not according to leftards,who are all takers.Ignorance can be overcome by teaching,stupid is forever.
A fool and his money are soon parted
As many here, the constant bleating of the Eco-Zombies (my creation), about stopping this pipeline and halting the Oil Sands etc has begun to sour on me..writ large.
Not once have I ever heard from anyone with a vested $$$ interest (bought and piad for), in so called alternative energy ever come up with a proposal for utilizing current technology to provide BASELOAD Power…something wind and solar can NEVER do. I wonder why that is eh..??
Thorium Nuclear generation. A 70 year old technology largely forgotten in the blitzx to build enmriched Uranium reactors (mainly cause we can build those civilization enhancing items called thermo-nuclear devices).
Hi time we did.
Screw wind and solar in an industrial setting…They will never provide the power when its truly needed.
BRD – lied too or not – he chose to put those hulking behemoths on a far corner of his property – out of his and his wife’s sight, but more than likely, right in plain sight of his neighbors. GREEDY DUTCHMAN!
Mike Crawley, Liberal Party Politics and Industrial Wind Turbines
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