Notification laws wrongly waived 

Law once required people to notify neighbors through county officials if they wanted to change anything on their property. These laws were waived without our knowledge regarding turbines.

Most here didn’t know they were coming. Some still don’t! Meetings at the fairgrounds are by invitation and only to leasees. Commissioners claim they publicized their meeting agendas. For such a drastic impact as 500-foot behemoths, this should’ve been via mail, but the law was discarded.

The numerous studies on turbines’ negative effects are refused to be acknowledged, admitted, nor looked at by commissioners. To glean truth about the impact of turbines, drive the back roads of Tipton. That there are testimonies recorded online by people from Canada to various states, and that their testimony concurs exactly with those of Tipton County residents, only proves the validity of the testimonies. If all these people, most of whom have never met, were lying, they wouldn’t match so precisely!

As we realistic, responsible landowners explain what we’ve carefully researched, we’re called fearmongers. It’s our lives, homes, future, and we want the truth. Are our listeners afraid of the truth? Who are the fearful ones?

We’re told if our neighbors want to improve their land, we’ve no right to object. (We weren’t given that chance.) Are turbines improving land? Is this improvement: sad, devastated farm fields in Tipton; crushing field drain tiles placed over years of work in our flood-prone fields, putting all of us at greater risk of flooding; adverse effect on livestock?

Agriculture is a thriving industry on our prime farmland, bringing revenue to Howard County. Many crops are for alternative fuel, ethanol. Is depleting that for 95, 500-foot machines generating expensive electricity sold to Michigan providing six jobs with no tax dollars to us improvement? These aren’t farms. Farmers signed away rights to their land. They’re industrial complexes operated by E.ON, which doesn’t farm.

For decades our back roads had huge potholes and broken pavement taking years and millions of dollars to achieve passable roads. To purposely destroy these for an enterprise existing only because of huge government subsidies that will run out, benefiting only a few leaseholders, isn’t that a waste of taxpayers’ money? E.ON’s roads in Tipton aren’t gravel, but a ground up mixture of something. Thick dust permeates the air worse than gravel, a dismal sight.

People move to the country for quiet and privacy. This is snatched from those where turbines are foisted upon them. All machines makes noises. Turbine noise varies according to weather conditions.

Americans’ rights are pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness while not infringing on others’ rights. If neighbors make valid improvements, that’s OK, but drastically change our lives without telling us?

We elect county officials to listen and work for us, not secretly change laws and demand compliance. Since leaseholders signed over many rights to a German company, we’re all losing freedom.

Leelia Cornell

Greentown