Thursday January 01 1970
Con with the Wind...
donegal |
environment |
event notice 
Friday August 06, 2010 13:15
by Gweebarra Conservation Group - Gweebarra Conservation Group
gweebarraconservation at gmail dot com
Plans to erect 85 wind turbines in and around the small town of Glenties will destroy the region's tourism potential and endanger the health of local residents
The Gweebarra Conservation Group is holding a Public Meeting in Elliott’s Lounge, Lettermacaward on Saturday, August 7th, 2010 at 4.00pm.
The group is concerned that Mytilus Minerals Ltd are now drilling in the Rosses to prepare a report for the Dept of Energy and Natural Resources on the area’s suitability for a hydro-electric scheme. The company were granted 3 licenses to prospect for gold, silver, barytes and flourites in 50 townlands in and around the Gweebarra Bay in March despite local objections but the real purpose of their drilling is linked to the growing number of wind farm applications along the proposed route of the 110kv high voltage power line.
As wind is not constant a hydro-electric scheme would keep the grid going when there is no wind. However if these wind farms get planning permission people would be forced to move to avoid the ill-health effects of ‘wind turbine syndrome’ such as disturbed sleep; headaches; ringing and pain in the ears; dizziness; nausea; blurred vision; racing heartbeat; irritability; problems with concentration and memory and panic attacks. People up to 10km from wind plants can experience these symptoms according to Dr Nina Pierpoint, a leading US authority on the subject.
Agent P J Molloy has applied to build nineteen 147m high turbines in 10 townlands north-east of Glenties while Straboy Wind Energy Ltd wants to erect thirty-eight 100m high turbines in six townlands north-west of Glenties. Another ten turbine wind farm west of Glenties at Loughderryduff wants to double in size as does a 5 turbine wind farm at Tangevene in the Glen of Glenties. Together these wind plants would destroy Glenties’ tourism potential and would be seen from Fintown, Doochary, Lettermacaward, Dungloe, Ardara, Ballybofey, Glenveagh National Park and Portnoo.
Hundreds of families live close to these sites, most much closer than the international recommended 2km minimum distance of turbines from homes. As well as the environmental, health and visual impact, these wind farms would devalue property by as much as 80%.
Donegal’s hills are wholly unsuitable for industrial wind plants as excavating tens of thousands of tonnes of peat releases more C02 into the atmosphere than these turbines will ever offset. There is also the very real threat of landslides.
Locals and holiday home owners are urged to attend the meeting in Elliotts at 4.00pm. For more information email GweebarraConservation@gmail.com or visit the group’s Facebook page.
Comments (5 of 5)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5For anyone who knows a bit about the subject.As someone who likes to climb the hills, I have often wondered why, instead of cluttering our landscape with these machines they are not installed (on a smaller scale) in urban areas, particularly atop industrial plants where the loss in power transmission would be minimal.Why do factories not have batteries of smaller scale wind generators packed as densly as feasable on their roofs?
I recognise there are economies of scale, but think that trade off is worth it. Height provides more efficient results, but this accountants logic is at the root of much that is wrong with 'western' developmental models.Time we lowered the profile of the Price and elevated the profile of alternative and supplementary Value?A cluster of four or five smaller turbines round every farmhouse should be as viable as one mega-unit on the highest point dominating the landscape.Lower transmission costs, less disruption on failure as numbers give less dependence on major outage risk.
You cant eat scenery, but the falling tourist figures indicate our lopsided ideas of development have damaged a few clean sustainable industries for an external FDI short-term gombeenism.
Where's that engineer when he's needed?
You can equally say that the village of Glenties ruins the skyline.
Lighthouses and beacons enhance the Irish shoreline.
As do jetties and harbours and piers and the roads leading to them.
Windmills look pretty in the Dutch landscape.
Windmills will look handsome on an Irish shoreline.
like health, depend on balance and proportionality. The concept of 'appropriate technology' is a necessary corrective to the techno-fix that would have us experiment with the oceans and athmosphere instead of reading the feedback and adapting ourselves as well as our ecology. We cannot consume and produce our way out of problems created by producing and consuming as though we were free of responsibilities to each other and the future.The windmills on Aran are fine, but I dont want to see the islands turned into a wind generator for the mainland. Nor do I want every hill to be crowned with machinery when a little imagination might see the problem solved with urban installations.New technologies are necessary, but so is a more considered approach to permissable individual consumption limits. Just as there is under-development, so there is overdevelopment.
The most ugly example is probably the 'epidemic' of obesity in the 'developed' world while a billion go hungry. Something rotten in the state...
If "Ruining the view of the bay " were the norm for development then Dublin would not exist.
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What exactly is ' the norm for development'? I dont believe people visit Dublin for the view of the bay (though it is worth doing if visiting).
You compare a metropolitan area with rural Donegal. Visual amenity and economic generator through tourism with power generation and transmission. You wouldn't be a ship's engineer by any chance?Or is it strictly wind?
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