APEX's Windy-Disinformation Campaign
Continues
Have you seen the recent sales propaganda
brochure APEX has distributed in Orleans and Niagra Counties?
Much like APEX's website
(which pictures APEX's staff in an idyllic countryside setting, with NO
industrial wind turbines in sight!), the front cover of APEX's most recent
windy-disinformation campaign pictures a farm - without a single industrial
wind turbine in sight - absurdly titled: "Wind
Energy: Good for Property Values."
How stupid does APEX think people are? Any
HONEST Real Estate person will tell you that the most important consideration
when buying a property is: "LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION!"
Even worse is the shameless Wyoming County
Supervisors who are quoted in APEX’s brochure - Eagle's Joe Kushner and Sheldon's John Knab (both
of whom will NOT
seek re-election this year, and at least one is reportedly leaving the area).
Both Kushner and Knab pimped their towns out to Big
Wind for a few recycled taxpayer dollars, making themselves some of the wind
industry’s favorite go-to-guys. Sheldon Supervisor, John Knab, has traveled as far as the state of Alabama
(that we know of), speaking on behalf of the wind industry. Knab and
Kushner seem despicably intent on turning more New York State countrysides
into bird-slaughtering, industrial wind factories by aiding and abetting Big
Wind hucksters, like APEX, with their windy-disinformation
campaigns.
The civil discord and environmental destruction Knab and Kushner
orchestrated here in Wyoming County is reminiscent of when Native Americans
sold Manhattan for a bunch of beads - their ignorance taken advantage of by
those who could not care less about them.
APEX’s
brochure also disingenuously lists two Orangeville properties as selling above
assessed value, while failing to mention that both those properties had
significant acreage – most important since farmland in Wyoming County has been
going for $6,000 - $12,000 an acre (since the installation of the Batavia
yogurt factory).
For
obvious reasons, APEX did NOT mention the fact that at least ten Orangeville
properties have sold BELOW their assessed value since Invenergy’s wind factory
went up, and many others haven’t sold at all.
APEX’s
brochure also neglected to mention the ongoing lawsuit in Orangeville, and the skyrocketing Wyoming
County tax rate, which has risen yearly over the past 12 years (another 9.68%
this year), in direct correlation with the installation of wind factories here.
It’s
no surprise that APEX didn’t include this report - which shows a 56% DECREASE in
property values near APEX’s Illinois project:
The
story is the same everywhere. Sprawling industrial wind factories negatively
impact property values!
There’s
also pesky little facts like New York State’s “skyrocketing” electricity rates that need to be considered. According to NYSERDA, the average New York State residential
electricity rate in 1999 was 13.3 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh). The first New York wind factories went up in
2000 (Wethersfield & Madison).
20 wind factories later, and the average residential electricity
rate in New York State as of February, 2015, is now 19.8 cents per kWh
(according to the EIA, as
cited by NYSERDA) – one of the highest rates in the nation, and nearly a
50%
increase since NYS began mindlessly plastering countrysides with
redundant generation
of industrial wind factories. (Of further interest - only 2% of New York
State's
electricity comes from coal.)
Regarding
industrial wind’s performance - New
York State’s wind factories have been averaging a pathetic
24%. Any other piece of equipment
- be it a machine, person or animal, that operated only 24% of the time would
have been dubbed a “LEMON” and put out to pasture a long time ago! Which
one of you would buy a vehicle that only operated 24% of the time? You
wouldn’t. You couldn’t afford to. It’s just that simple. But
when the state and federal government are in charge of spending our money,
economic reality doesn’t seem to matter.
Physicist and Malone, NY Town Board member, Jack
Sullivan, reported on the reality of wind’s failure to
produce in his article: “Some
Lessons from New York.”
Sullivan explained, “Both Vesta and GE turbines
have a manufacturer’s life expectancy rating of 20 years, yet no New York wind
project is on track to sell enough electricity in 20 years to pay for itself.”
Mr. Sullivan used the wind industry’s 20-year
life expectancy claim for his calculations. The inconvenient truth exposed in
another report, however, says that “wind
turbines last only half as long” as the wind industry
has claimed - making the fact that they can never pay for themselves even more
evident.
These things aren’t ‘wind farms,’ they’re tax
farms - in the business of harvesting our taxpayer and ratepayer dollars, and
transferring them into the pockets of rich, multi-national corporations.
All of this enabled because of cronyism
in high places and short-sightedness, willful ignorance, and greed of those
willing to suck on the teat of wind
welfare at the rest of our expense.
Mary Kay Barton
Retired Health Educator, Silver Lake, Wyoming
County
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