Windfarm risks acceptable? (Evelyn Morrison)
My letter is in response to the little article (Shetland Times, 11th July) inserted on behalf of Harry Jamieson, Linda and Pete Glanville, Andrina Tulloch, John Johnson, Bruce Benson, Veda Tait, Tony Erwood, Alistair and Kate Christie-Henry, Kenny Johnson, Laughton Johnson, Chris Bunyan, Cavy Johnson, Kaila McCulloch, John Dally, Marianne Tarrant, Will John Anderson, Richard and Victoria Gibson and Jim Dickson who are all imploring people not to stand in the way of the windfarm development.
To the named supporters of the windfarm, I would ask, since we know that the mining of rare earth minerals in China is poisoning the land, lakes and people, how can they equate this with nice green energy? These rare minerals are components modern turbines depend upon.
Supporters must believe this wretched toxicity is acceptable.
These named supporters are aware that children in the windfarm areas will be exposed to infrasound. So after their bedtime story these little children can cuddle their pillows and receive maximum auditory stimulation. The pillow will block audible sound but not infrasound.
Supporters have found this to be acceptable.
The named supporters obviously have no concerns for the physical and psychological ill health that the windfarm occupants will be subjected to when the turbines become operational. Clearly the supporters have a better understanding of the detrimental health effects than Dr Sarah Taylor whose report supports the evidence that individuals living on windfarms will be affected.
The windfarm supporters find this acceptable.
I will not insult the windfarm supporters intelligence by suggesting that they were perhaps unaware of the above. Thankfully there are still many decent people who do not find these facts at all acceptable.
I have only touched on some of the reasons why I will never support this development.
Surprisingly no one in the above supporters group will have to live in the windfarm.
Evelyn Morrison
Setter,
Weisdale.
Allen Fraser
The consumer will pay the extra high price of electricity needed to fund the Viking windfarm and cable while those living with within the windfarm pay with their health and wellbeing. The whole of Shetland pays by the industrialisation and permanent destruction of our landscape.
Who cares? Certainly not our politicians (local and national) or The Shetland Charitable Trust trustees.
john irvine
There are 2 kinds of VE supporters…
The extremely limited greedy few who hope to line their own pockets and the those without the wit to see the wool pulled over their eyes!
Karen Angus
I have an idea – how about all those people who support the VE windfarm but don’t currently live in the area, swap houses with all the people who DO currently live in the area and but don’t want to be living there when their home environment starts to turn into a construction site.
Ali Inkster
Forgive them Karen for they know not what they do. If this goes ahead we will all be living in the middle of a windfarm. na screw it if this goes ahead I will be damned if I will forgive any one of them, I reckon most folk will feel the same no matter how much Chris Bunyan et al pleads for it.
Maurice Smith
Interestingly, a certain Mr B***** was looking at houses in the South Mainland some time ago – what was wrong wi da Wast Side?
Chris Bunyan
My attention has been drawn to Maurice’s comments above. He apparently thinks internet readers
will find it interesting that we looked at an old cottage on his croft which was for sale. Why he
thinks anyone should be interested I don’t know, but just in case I can tell you we decided quickly
not to touch it with a barge-pole because of boundary problems. If he really does find it interesting
that we were looking at houses I’m more than happy to tell him why over a cup of coffee.
What really confuses me about his contribution is why he thinks this piece of gossip has anything to do with Viking Energy. Perhaps he can explain ?
He also appears to have forgotten how to spell my name, or perhaps the * key is sticky.
Chris Bunyan
Still no reply from Maurice I see. Perhaps a found his comments not so interesting after all.
Rosa Steppanova
I still fail to understand why VE could not move the turbines to the recommended minimum distance of 2km from dwellings. As this is a so-called community project, why did they not involve the population of Shetland fully in the decision making process, rather than presenting them with a fait-accompli?
VE and supporters chose to ignore, belittle or ridicule potential risks to health and quality of life and those who show concerns for folk having to live in the windfarm. The windfarm supporter website makes interesting reading: http://www.windfarmsupporters.org/health.html)
VE may well live to regret ignoring Dr. Taylor’s Health Impact Assessment, as this removed the “claiming ignorance” option. Not applying the precautionary principle and failing to mitigate potential detrimental effects of their development lays them open to litigation and compensation claims in the future. There are already cases of precedence in Europe (including Scotland) where courts have upheld complaints, ordered payment of compensation and the removal of turbines.
I’m certain that had VE et al taken these concerns on board, rather than adhering to their intransigent and ruthless position on this issue, the rift in this community would be far less deep.