From Burk Peterson’s back door in Anderson County, he can see the turbines stretched across his sight line from horizon to horizon in Coffey County 26 miles away.
At night he said, it is like he is being invaded by aliens, because the turbines’ red lights are synced to blink in unison.
Looking at Kansas wind maps and the marginal to poor winds in Southeast Kansas, some might wonder why wind energy companies would come here to harvest wind for power.
With wind turbines that stand nearly 600 feet tall and blades reaching another 200 feet in the air, the energy companies think there is a better chance to capture those winds, but opponents, such as Peterson, have concerns.
That was not always Peterson’s perception, or his friend Dane Hicks’, according to what they shared with concerned residents of Neosho County Tuesday evening. The two men were part of a group in Anderson County that stopped a wind farm project there.
At first they thought, “We’ve already got a nuclear power plant, what’s a few more bucks,” Peterson said. Because the wind farms could impact property values, and given the tax breaks the wind companies receive, property taxes are increased on area residents to compensate. As well, their electricity bills often increase. Also, people are taxed to pay the federal subsidies to build the wind farms, the men said.
(Read more: Parsons Sun)