LETTER: Forest resident questions letter’s facts

To the Editor:

Jay Mundinger, of Emerging Energies (EE) LLC recently stated “...we also understand the power of misinformation and its impact on forming opinions.” (New Richmond News, Letter to the Editor, July 19, 2012.)

Mundinger’s statements are reminiscent of the hawkers and peddlers of yesteryear, who would by any means necessary try to sway the public into believing the benefits of the products they sold with no regard to their “customers” health and welfare. The public relations firm of Putnam, Roby, Williamson Communications of Madison, Wis., which represents Emerging Energies, supports the statement on the company’s website. “To the public we are ‘snake oil salesmen,’ ‘spin doctors’ or ‘mercenary hucksters.’” See: http://prwcomm.com/2010/?page_id=519.

The residents of Forest opposed to industrial wind development cannot afford a public relations firm; we must rely on the truth. NASA and the Department of Energy studied low frequency and infrasound in the 1980s and 1990s. The reports document health consequences, yet state health agencies seem to ignore the results. I cannot find one independent, nonbiased governmental study, from Massachusetts to Wisconsin, conducted in a wind project where victims live. Even Emerging Energies’ lease contract contains a clause on “stray” voltage mitigation, another side effect of wind turbines. We are all intelligent enough to realize the word “mitigation,” means there is a problem.

Are we to believe Mundinger’s statement, “Health experts across this great country have studied the possible health impacts of wind turbines…and have found no credible conclusions to suggest there are ill effects”? If you believe the “very experts, the regulators, the people we trust with safeguarding our health” are putting people like us first when influenced by lucrative tax subsidized Big Wind, well; perhaps you would like to buy some snake oil.

Mundinger further stated, “No reports of any negative health effects from the wind farm [in Kewaunee County, WI] have been recorded since it was built.” Not true. Find the report at: http://www.aweo.org/windlincoln.html. Several Kewanee County homes were later purchased and bulldozed because of setbacks and health issues. Could Mundinger’s mention of Kewaunee County be an attempt to “mitigate” public knowledge of victim families in the Shirley Wind project, Glenmore, Wis., near Green Bay, EE’s first and only operating wind energy project? See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71DxuicwCXw.

Mundinger also stated, “while support for the project within the Town of Forest remains quietly strong...” Note that the supporters of the wind project are a minority of landowners, most of whom have signed land leases with EE. Their contracts contain confidentially clauses, or “gag orders.” It is definitely quiet in the hosting landowners’ camp.

A resident asked Bill Rakocy, of Emerging Energies, during a town board meeting if he had wind turbines where he lives. He answered, no, he did not—they don’t allow them in his township; and they don’t belong in ours. Forcing the Highland Wind project will most likely secure the health, safety and financial future of the Emerging Energies partners; while my neighbors and I stand to lose ours.

Brenda Salseg

Town of Forest,

Emerald

Tags: letters to the editor, opinion