Wind Turbine Farm In Mason County

Wind Turbine Farm In Mason County Compared To Lake Michigan Offshore Wind Farms

July

22nd

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Wind Turbine Farm In Mason County

Mason County will be the home of a planned 40 to 70 turbine Wind Farm. This 100 megawatt wind farm will be called The Lakewinds Energy Park and it will extend to U.S. 10 to the north, U.S. 31 to the east, Lake Michigan to the west and The Oceana county line to the south. Each tower will generate between 1.5 megawatts and 2.5 megawatts. This wind farm is planned by Consumers Energy and it has been in the planning stage for two and a half years. There will be information provided by Consumers Energy July 27-31 at the Mason County Fairgrounds. The booth will be open between 9 am and 5 pm. They are still working on the details but they already have a few hundred land owners covering 16,000 acres signed for easements

These easements will be used for placement of towers, substations, electric lines and to meet set back requirements. This wind farm will be close to the Ludington Pumped Storage Plant which will make it very beneficial using the electrical grid system that is already in place. Consumers Energy have been gathering data from six towers that have already been installed that was installed in the last couple of years. They have gathered information on wind speed and direction, temperature and other information needed for site installation.

Consumers Energy figures it will be a six to nine month building time and be in operation by 2012. Another planned wind farm named,, Cross Winds Energy Park will be constructed in Tuscola and Huron counties between 2015 and 2017.

There is a lot of support from the local governments and from local land owner for Consumers Energy. This will benefit our local people and local governments more so than building Wind Farms in Lake Michigan by a foreign company. There are many wind farms already operating on land and they are easier to construct and maintain than in Lake Michigan. Most of the residents in Mason and Oceana counties, especially in Ludington and Pentwater, dont want them in Lake Michigan with their blinking lights at night and to look out over Lake Michigan and see nothing but Wind Mills. We also don’t know what effect it will have on our fishery, bird migratory routes and tourism which is a few billion dollar a year industry. We also don’t want the State of Michigan Government to force it down our throat by not giving us a choice of turning it down. We ca n get our mandated amount of green energy with out jeopardizing our one of a kind fresh water lakes with an unproven concept. I am against Lake Michigan wind Turbines just like most of the people I talk to because of what it could do to our tourism, sports fishing and other effects it could have on our economy and also what it could do to Lake Michigan.

Eugene Killian