Lee County residents say no to wind farm

On Monday, the county’s zoning board of appeals held its 25th hearing for the planned 53 turbines. Residents made their closing statements.

Pat Scully, who would live near the turbines, said no one has the right to reduce his home value.

“My house won’t be worth anything with a wind farm next to it,” he said. “There are a lot of people who don’t want (the wind turbines) to be our neighbors. If they want to come to our neighborhood, they should buy our neighborhood.”

Another resident, Robin Ackerson, also objected to the wind farm. She noted Mainstream’s project map indicated her property was Recipient 37.

“Recipient of what?” she asked. “They’re not putting any turbines on our property, so I’m not receiving any money. Not that I want turbines. I will receive shadow flicker, noise and destruction of property value.”

Eight turbines, Ackerson said, would be within one mile of her property, closer to her home than those of the landowners who would allow them.

“I feel this is an intrusion. The noise is an intrusion,” Ackerson said. “You can hear leaves falling from my house. That’s why I live out there. If I have eight turbines near my home, the quiet I experience on a day-to-day basis will forever be destroyed.”

She likes to ride horses on her pasture, but she fears the shadow flicker from the turbines will scare the animals.

“There’s nothing more dangerous than a frightened horse,” Ackerson said.

For most of the two and one-half hour hearing, Bob Logan, Franklin Grove’s village president, had the floor. He criticized Lee County’s wind farm regulations as weak, saying the county had a history of letting the wind energy industry write the rules.

In 2006, he said, a company wrote the findings of fact for the zoning board before the panel approved the firm’s wind farm.

“The person who does the work wins the game,” he said.

Logan also questioned whether Mainstream would even operate the proposed turbines. The company hasn’t ruled out selling the wind farm, as it has done with others, including the Shady Oaks project, near Lee County’s Compton.