Save Coteau Prairie Landscape

Greetings,

Originally, this web site was created as an information source in regards to the proposed Hartland wind farm for northwestern North Dakota, but since the Missouri Coteau prairie extends all the way to the southeast corner of the state, I feel this information should be shared with all.

Wind mills are a good thing for personal use. If property owners want to put one next to their own house, barn or on top of their business establishment, that's just fine. But to have 3-5 hundred huge industrial wind turbines put in the face of all man and wildlife currently enjoying the natural landscape and solitude of this region is wrong. And the issues here are not just visual or local. The production of transmission lines to support this project will impact landowners and wildlife across this state.

"North Dakota farmers are being approached by sophisticated wind developers and are being encouraged to sign contracts, either leases or easements, which subject the farmers to legal risk that could, one day, cause them to loose their farms," Rice said. "I have the utmost respect for farmers, but frankly, they are no match for contracts drafted by the big-city law firms representing wind developers." Colleen Rice, lawyer for NV Energy. Wind Companies Want to Nix Contract Disclosures - Bismarck Tribune - 4-22-09.

"Wind power is an idea that is appealing to the imagination. It sounds like a 'free' source of energy that would be non-polluting and stable in cost. I am an optimist, and I love technology. If I thought for one moment that windmills would be a source of low cost energy, I would be building them. The reality is quite the contrary - wind power is wasteful of human and natural resources." - Fergus Smith, VT. (Source) Notable Quotes.

"The trouble with wind farms is that they have a huge spatial footprint for a piddling little bit of electricity... ." - Sir Martin Holdgate, former chairman of the British Renewable Energy Advisory Group. (Source) Notable Quotes.

"Industrial wind is almost the perfect enterprise for our era, as it produces no meaningful product or service but is subsidized up to 80 percent by rate and tax payers. Like many "celebrities," it is famous for being famous, not for its actual performance."- Jon Boone in email to IWA 1/8/07

Wind Farms ... "They do more harm than good" - Eric Rosenbloom - Wind-Watch.org
Wind Energy ..."a fool's errand" - Diemer True - Wyoming landowner
Wind Farms ... "obsolete technology in 10 years" - Bill Sebastian - Texas landowner

To further justify my opposition to industrial wind turbines, I offer five outstanding web sites for your review. Nina Pierpont's web site www.windturbinesyndrome.com IS A MUST SEE AND HEAR! ... and be sure to check out the other four. Just click on the links at the bottom of this page. You will see that the environmental community is now distancing itself from industrial turbines. Here is a new wind energy development that is far more friendly to the environment than a huge turbine. www.massmegawatts.com. I am not opposed to use of wind energy, I'm opposed to giant turbines that do more harm than good.

In the September 2008 issue of Viking Magazine, published by the Sons of Norway, an article appears that is written by Denise Logeland entitled "Norway's Renewable Future". One segment of the article is about industrial wind turbines. Mr. Hereld Dirdah is the managing director of an Oslo based company called Havgul AS that is in charge of building Norway's first offshore wind farm called Havsul 1. Mr. Dirdah states, "The political climate in Norway goes toward fewer and larger wind parks and off shore you can build much, much larger parks than you can on shore. Norwegians have a not-in-my-backyard attitude about wind turbines". Well now, isn't that interesting. The old country where my grandfather Oscar Jorgenson came from has finally got a belly full of huge, landscape altering wind turbines. America needs to live by lessons learned. If the turbines are so good, put them out in the oceans next to the coasts where 50% of the U.S. population lives. Then let the turbines compete with the new technologies of both tidal and wave action energies that the ocean supplies on a daily basis. European Call for Wind Energy Moratorium.

Everybody in North Dakota and beyond needs to see this video supplied by National Wind Watch. Welcome to Mars Hill. Witness first hand how the wind turbine industry has affected the lives of families, neighbors, communities and wildlife. Four other great videos are: Voices of Tug Hill, Wind Madness, Wisconsin Wind and Wind Turbines at Tug Hill. As the true story about industrial wind turbines continues to unfold, so comes the growing number of opposition organizations in the U.S., Canada and world wide. Just look on the Affiliates page of the Wind-Watch web site. If this doesn't open eyes, I don't know what will. Also, search the Video archives for more real life facts about turbines. I am thoroughly convinced the wind industry is using similar tactics and schemes to sell their goods as some traveling salesmen did in the late 1800's. A good example is illustrated on page two of www.windtoons.com.

Check out the two pages of photos that I've taken over the years. Back in the 1990s, I took aerial photographs for the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture. Most of the wetland pictures were taken at 7,000 feet. All photos were taken in, above or adjacent to the Coteau hills of Burke, Mountrail and Ward counties; a home of myself, parents, grandparents and great grandparents. These unique prairie images could be lost if wind turbines are imposed upon our landscape.