There is an issue that has gotten my attention and I am asking the Board of Supervisors to make some regulations or zoning regarding the erection of wind towers in Lake County.
There is currently an application for a permit in the City of Clearlake requesting the erection of a wind tower.
My biggest problem with this is the fact that these towers kill thousands of birds a year, they kill thousands of birds a year, they kill thousands of birds a year! It”s only been the past 10 or 15 years that the waterfowl have finely come back from all the damage we did dumping chemicals into the lake back in the 1950s and ”60s. Please, see how important it is we don”t do any more damage than we have already done to the birds that give us so much pleasure, just by their presence. For any concerned persons the Record-Bee had an article in the paper about a month or so ago regarding turbo towers. I don”t know the statistics on the turbo towers, but they don”t look like they would be nearly a threat to the birds as the wind towers, because they don”t have blades. Unfortunately, they are just as unsightly as the wind towers.
My second problem is you have to visualize the city of Clearlake peppered with these wind towers. The city already lacks any beautification, the towers would just add to that.
These wind towers were made for mountain cabins, not to riddle a town with them. It”s not like you can”t use solar power in town. The person applying for the permit lives on the lake (where the birds are) and the tower won”t be in her backyard, it”s in mine, and the whole rest of the cities.
I urge you to take action on this issue and to consider zoning to keep these towers a safe distant from the lake and away from our bird population.
Bonnie Barbee
Clearlake
