| Arturo Fernandez | GateHouse Media
For the residents of North East who remember the contentious wind farm debate over the industrial wind turbine project proposed for the township, there is an excellent investigative report from Gatehouse Media, owners of the Erie Times News, now on their GoErie.com website. If there is any doubt we narrowly averted disaster, your time would be well spent looking over the results of their investigation.
A six-month GateHouse Media investigation found that wind developers representing some of the world’s biggest energy companies divide communities and disrupt the lives of residents forced to live in the shadow of their industrial wind farms.
… Reporters interviewed more than 70 families living near three dozen current or proposed wind farms. They also spoke to 10 state and local lawmakers, read hundreds of pages of public-service-commission records about wind projects, reviewed court filings in seven wind-related lawsuits and inspected lease agreements from at least eight wind farms.
GateHouse Media also identified through public documents and media reports an additional 400 families living near industrial wind turbines that have publicly complained about shadow flicker, noise, health problems and/or misleading statements by wind companies in an effort to solicit land agreements.
The investigation found that companies convince landowners to sign away their property rights for generations based on the promise of potential profits and the minimization of potential problems associated with wind turbines.
The multi-part report can be found here:
http://gatehousenews.com/windfarms
http://gatehousenews.com/windfarms/worst-of-it/
http://gatehousenews.com/windfarms/inside-the-numbers/
http://gatehousenews.com/windfarms/in-your-own-words/
http://gatehousenews.com/windfarms/inside-the-investigation/
The reporters of Gatehouse Media should be applauded for digging into a problem where many local media outlets devote far too little time. Great work!