Well, he just wants to save some money so he built this windmill approved by the township but got sued instead. Too noisy, too big, too high, casts a shadow. Whatever. I hope this won’t discourage use of wind energy. Placing wind mills in your backyard just isn’t the right way to do things though.
Windmill Cuts Bills, but Neighbors Don’t Want to Hear It
BEACH HAVEN TERRACE, N.J., July 10 - Tired of paying as much as $340 per month for gas and electricity at the Cape Cod home here where he has lived for 18 months, Michael Mercurio erected a 35-foot windmill in his backyard last fall that helped reduce his bill to about $114 a year.
Some of his neighbors say it is also annoying. They say it is too big. They say it is too noisy. And some residents in this middle-class borough on Long Beach Island have gone to court to try to make him take it down, while the township has stilled it since winter.
The clash began in February when two of Mr. Mercurio’s neighbors filed a lawsuit in State Superior Court in Ocean County, charging that the township had acted improperly when it issued the permits that allowed him to build the weathered gray steel tower in his backyard.
The suit also says that the spinning blades throw ’strobe-like shadows’ on their property from noon to sunset.
Mary Kopp, 81, Mr. Mercurio’s next-door neighbor, thinks that alternative energy “is something we have to look into,” but that his yard is “the wrong place for a windmill like this.”
“I’ve heard it spinning,” Mr. Kubarewicz said. “It’s not like a helicopter or anything. But to live next to it? I don’t know.”
Source: The New York Times
It would be cool if the corridor lights can be powered by renewable energy one day. I thought putting up some windmills or solar panels are a good idea.
Tags: annoyance, environment, news
I can’t help but think that people complaining about “noise pollution” and “aesthetics” are using such arguments to front a conservative agenda. With the number of billboards, telephone wires, water towers, air conditioning units, and noise pollution caused by the general populace (cars, industry, etc.)I can’t help but scoff at such poor excuses to target a man who is reducing the amount of actual air pollution and/or toxic waste generated in the community on property that he rightfully owns. What happened to America’s independent spirit, and the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?
by Green Peace (Jul 30, 2007 at 3 AM)