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Dear Editor;
If you have been reading your local papers for the past year, you would have read articles and editorials explaining the magnitude of the Pattern's Industrial Wind Turbine (IWT) project.
To remind you, Pattern is a foreign owned company. Pattern's intention is to install up to 172 IWTs, each 650 to 750 feet tall. Sadly our Wisconsin laws would allow them to industrialize our rural, Driftless area without any democratic involvement.
The majority of the local residents, still, do not understand the massive impact of these IWTs. So let me paint a picture for you.
Picture "Charlie's" 30 foot tall barn and a 650 foot tall IWT. This IWT is 21.66667 times taller than the barn. (Formula: 650 ÷ 30 = 21.66667.) That is hard to visualize, so let's bring it down to fit on a piece of paper.
Make 1/4 inch mark to represent the barn. Multiplying .25 × 21.66667 = 5.4166675 which is approximately 5 1/2 inches. Measure a line 5 1/2 inches next to the 1/4 inch barn. Then draw yourself standing next to that barn and turbine. You won't be much more than a dot. It will look like this:
_ "Charlie's" Barn
______________________ IWT
. You
What's wrong with this?
First of all, these IWTs are outrageously huge!
Second, Pattern's project is UNDEMOCRATIC AND UNJUST!
But there are many more wrongs.
This project would destroy our landscape and peaceful rural way of life forever!
If constructed this would cause a massive change to our economy, tourism, and property values.
This project would produce energy that we don't need locally. The energy produced would be transmitted to cities in the East...while Lafayette and Iowa County citizens would be obligated to pay for it.
For some people the IWTs would cause serious health problems and for some wildlife, the IWTs would cause death.
The IWTs are touted as "clean" energy, but that industry does not have a good plan for disposing of the old turbines or their non-recyclable blades.
Communities all across the US have found better ways to produce "clean" energy at much less cost and with little interference with the environment (distributed generation of energy). Many documents can be found online to demonstrate how people are taking a stand to help our environment.
Each of us must speak up to save our democracy and preserve our rural way of life.
Jean Luecke
Dodgeville, WI