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| My BIL 25 miles away farms around several of them. I was envious when I first heard what the land owners were going to be paid. After seeing the construction mess and all the problems associated with the wind mills, run away fast.
About 2 years ago a outfit tried to start a wind farm in our area. These are very slick people who already know what questions the landowners will ask and they know and will promise you what you want to hear. Unfortunately for the industry, they have a well deserved reputation for promising a lot and delivering on very little. The standard answer seems to be "Joe Schmo ( or whoever the salesman who signed you up and answered your questions) doesn't work for us anymore and we have no idea what he promised and it's not in the 24 page contract that you signed so we can't be held responsible". And that's when the lawyers get involved.
What we found out when they wanted some of our land for windmill towers that while the local aerial sprayers (that we've used for years) won't spray around the towers, others will. Nothing was ever mentioned who or where these new applicators were from or what they would charge to spray.
They would not allow any hunting within 1 mile (I think it was) of a tower..
Towers would be placed along roads or in corners of fields "whenever possible". In my BIL's case, it was never possible. They installed wider, better gravel roads than the local township roads angled across fields wherever they wanted. The windmill site itself would on sit on a tenth or 2 of a acre, the access road for each tower could easily be several acres. The culverts that were promised for these access roads seemed to be only added after lawyers were involved. The construction companies liked to walk their huge, heavy cranes across the farmer's land (I'm sure that it was a lot quicker and handier for them to do it that way). Unfortunately they crushed/broke tile when they did that and getting them to pay to fix them was lawyer time again.
While everyone likes more money for doing nothing, this seems like a deal that the absentee landowners like and the people who have to live and deal with the daily problems hate. | |
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Wind farm proposed for my area-gathering information
