Maple Ridge Wind Farm has been a disaster

I reside in the center of the Maple Ridge Wind Farm on the Tug Hill Plateau. The part you don't see on a guided tour. When I look out my front door, I can count at least 151 405-foot turbines, thanks in part to Horizon Energy. This project has fragmented wildlife habitat, the community and our family along with several others that I know.

The monies received by leaseholders benefit very few compared to how many people these monsters have a great negative impact on. TV and radio reception are tremendously affected and many of us cannot get cable TV. Horizon and PPM's promises to mitigate this problem have not had any effect. The shadow flicker, noise, visual and light pollution have destroyed our quality of life that we treasured. We live there because it is where we grew up and enjoyed the benefits of the peacefulness and prestigious beauties that nature provided to us. Now we are in the center of a major industrial nightmare soon to be an industrial graveyard.

The $3 million plus PILOT payments have not reduced my land taxes or anyone else's that I have seen. I am the owner of two properties in the town of Lowville. My brothers have properties in Harrisburg and Martinsburg, the other two towns that encompass this disaster, and their taxes have also increased.

I realize that they promise great benefits to the town and residents. They did it here. They didn't deliver. Our streets are destroyed and continue to be as they run cranes and other heavy equipment almost daily to try to repair all of the broken turbines, which is obviously visible on a daily basis. Broken blades, failing mechanisms, nose cone that was thrown a great distance. Luckily no collapses yet like the one in Clinton County earlier this month. These have only been commissioned for three years in Phase 1 and two years for Phase 2. What will happen as they get older if they were failing after a year or less of operation?

It's all about money for the developers — the turbines are foreign-owned — so they can take our tax money back to their country.

I beg you not to allow this to happen in your community. It is not worth dividing families, the community and stripping the residents of their health, quality of life and American Dream. I realize the dollar signs are tempting, but it is not worth it.

Timothy Yancey

Lowville