Letters to the Editor

Stop Wind Energy 'Gold Rush'

To the editor:

Reflecting a nearly 50 percent nationwide increase in wind electricity plants in 2007, developers are arriving in what they themselves called "a gold rush."

Glossy ads for wind power always show turbines in open fields, never in forests. That's because every turbine requires up to five acres of deforestation.

Hundreds of turbines are being built here, burgeoning to tens of thousands if the U.S. Department of Energy indiscriminately pursues its "20 percent wind energy by 2030" program.

Do the math, and factor in the forest fragmentation that multiplies the loss of habitat, and the super-wide new roads that destroy the last remote, wild ridges.

Slender, rocky ridges are blasted and bulldozed to flatten pads for turbines. Each pad requires hundreds of tons of concrete. After the 25-year life span of the huge machines, the pads remain as dead ground.

Deforestation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions after fossil fuel burning. The rest of the world agreed at the recent U.N. climate summit to protect maturing forests that sequester huge amounts of carbon dioxide.

Some of the people living near turbines suffer from chronic sleeplessness and other symptoms of Wind Turbine Syndrome (including depression over loss of property values).

Death, destruction and insomnia are marketed to urban consumers as "green" electricity, what little there is of it. Turbines produce only about 30 percent or less of their maximum rated capacity, and some of that is lost along hundreds of miles of transmission lines. What drives this high-cost/lowbenefi t gold rush is the federal production tax credit.

The coal mining that has ravaged the land and people in part of Appalachia for a century is our major source of electricity, and is obscenely destructive to forests. But destroying more forests in order to stop destroying forests doesn't make sense. And building industrial wind plants in Appalachia isn't change. It's a 21st-century version of the same old pattern of taking value out and leaving costs behind.

Industrial wind power has a place, and T. Boone Pickens knows exactly where that is: on the plains, where winds are incessant. Other potentially low impact sites are mid-western cropfields, eastern strip mines, and off-shore waters, much closer to the coastal cities that need the power.

But in forested rural areas, community-scale rather than industrial-scale would better contribute to your goal of 10 percent of our electricity from renewable sources by 2012. Solar panels and small wind turbines have enormous potential for on-site, small-scale power generation, with hardly a ripple on the grid.

Consider how much stronger our nation would be against disasters both natural and criminal if schools, hospitals, community centers, businesses, nursing homes, farms, houses and apartment buildings across the country made enough electricity to pump drinking water and refrigerate food.

Can't we make some of that $150 billion you want to invest in "building a clean energy future" available to ordinary people, small businesses and neighborhoods, as well as distant corporations? Chris Bolgiano Fulks Run, Va.

Americans Are Unfit

To the editor:

We have all heard our parents or grandparents bragging about walking uphill both ways to and from school.

Though it may be a bit exaggerated, evidence shows that rural people were once better off in terms of physical activity, nutrition and weight.

A report by Center for Rural Affairs found that rural Americans today are more obese and less fit than urban Americans.

Numerous issues contribute to this situation. Forty years ago half of all students walked or bicycled to school. Today less than 15 percent do because of traffic safety concerns.

Employment has affected our health as well. Fewer rural Americans are employed in rigorous occupations such as farming, fishing and forestry. Also the percentage of multiple income families has grown.

With their jobs, along with school and community activities, rural people struggle to find time to exercise and prepare nutritious meals. Even if individuals and families try to make better eating decisions, the availability of nutritious foods is often limited.

Many of the factors involved in worsening conditions regarding diet, activity and obesity can be addressed through individual, family and community action.

As the new administration and the new Congress begin to debate health care reform, they need to keep in mind that the best long-term way to reform the health care system is to help create healthier people. Everyone has a stake in creating a healthier society and everyone has responsibility to do so.

The full report is available online at: cfra.org/09/01/ healthreport. I can be reached at elishas@cfra.org. Elisha Greeley Smith Center for Rural Affairs