DTE Energy is in the planning stages of a wind farm in my home township and surrounding townships. My family and I own ground in every township they are after. So of course they are knocking on my door looking to get a contract. I would never sign anything without getting proper legal advice but my question is to anyone with one in there backyard. Can you live with looking at them? How bad did your home value fall?

A coworkers father did this years ago. He makes enough money he simply moved over time. Retired early as well. If I see him today I will ask what he is geting per unit. I know the guy isn't hurting that is for sure.

One person will tell ya that the towers don't bother them and the next neighbor will say it's practically killing them to have the towers within eye site. Kinda like a feedlot. One can't smell hardly nothing and the next one will say the smell is killing them. Human nature, different for everyone! I am on the P&Z board and have to choose when an application comes in. Ain't easy and can cause hard feeling...... some last a long time!!!

I’m don’t know about the home value part. I do know I personally hate looking at them. We have them by the hundreds where I live. My uncle has negotiated the contracts on them for the local landowners. I can probably get a copy of it if you would like. PM me if interested. It’s just like an oil lease, lots to think about.

I think I could get used to almost anything if they were sending me a nice wad of money on a regular basis.

my concern would be that these towers have a life span and they most likely want to you to lease them land for X many years say 40 years , in 40 years are you left with an "improvement" on your land that will cost you a fortune to take down.

some clause that states at the end of the lease period they must remove the "improvement" from your land or re-up the lease with an adjustment to the cost equal to 100% of the 3 years previous to the lease ending average value of the US dollar you probably want to figure out the best way to calculate that . also that they must maintain all wind turbines, towers and grid in working order or it must be removed.

you wouldn't want them 10 years from the end of the lease having a major failure of a tower and they leave it to rot for 10 more years while you watch it fall apart ,

West of me , they have started putting these turbines in... I'm not big on the site of them, and my electric isnt cheaper.. I also dont live that close to them.. If they were right outside my house I would really hate that I think... Unless the electric bill goes down which it wont lol.

I would rather have a wind tower then an oil well as far as looking at them smell/traffic/garbage and noisy from even on electric. You won't have the mess like oil facilities.

I know a widower that has them on her farm and she doesn't mind them. She has told me they aren't any bother and she likes looking at them.

Like I said oil facilities would be a lot worse.

I live in the wind farm on the west side. Property values have went down, noise levels up, electric rates up, and they look like crap.
With certain winds the nearest one to me (1/2 mile) sounds like a freight train. We’ve gotten used to them but will never like them. It pretty much ripped the community apart. Silver lining it’s still a better place to live than where I work lol.

Take all you can get because they are going in and there is nothing you can do about it. Kill lots of birds and bats and they do not care. Look like !#^!! to me. JMO.

We have lots of the big ones here, they are an eye sore. At night the entire horizon is solid red blinking lights. So far there is no bond required for future removal, which means the state will probably be on the hook for removal some day. Take away the subsidies and you won't see any new wind farms. Landowners here are paid 10-15k per year per tower.

I leased some property to hunt that had turbines on it. The gentleman describing the sound like a freight train is correct, and it never stops, changes, or goes away. I had a tree stand up a pretty good distance away from one, and the stand was useless due to the constant droning noise from it. I had never paid much attention to it till it was a quiet morning I the woods.

Thanks for the replies. I believe they do have enough land owners already even without my family but I also have a business that I believe will be affected if I do sign. Meeting with DTE this week to hear them out and then getting the lawyer involved.

Wind turbines are a warm fuzzy. They are for the grid. Subsidized heavy. We will see if they are still erected in the next few years. Haven't seen anything about who cleans them up when they are no longer in use. Even now electricity from them is at a higher rate. Gov. has forced utilities to blend in renewable energy even when it is at a higher rate.

Pull the tax payer funds and they are not sustainable . Some day some one is going to make big money dismantling all that junk in the sky.

For now You won't stop their agenda so milk it for all its worth then move !

I had a hunter two years ago that makes his living building and maintaining wind farms. He said they were really good for his family and employees because he makes a lot of money in the building phase, and again in the maintenance phase. He said as far as power goes they are a joke and would never be viable without heavy subsidies. I think you're smart to get a lawyer to go over everything....one other thing this guy told me was that wind turbines spit out a lot of oil....sounds crazy but he said the seals go on a regular basis, and when that happens they lose all the oil out of the gear case. Of course that oil is blown over a wide area, so that is something to consider since its your land. He also said they were noisy.

Same for solar and wood fired co-generation plants, without taxpayer subsidies they go broke. Just had a co gen plant shut down in our area. They have gotten several taxpayer bailouts over the years, asked for another, but finally did not get it. So now they are done. The Maple Ridge Wind farm is in the county I live in. There are proposals to build more, I don’t like them, but my area has little heavy industry left and therefore few good paying jobs. With that being said, our annual property tax burden is high and ever increasing thanks to the Democrats that control the state. So if they were to approach me to build on my property ,for the right price ,I would be favorable to them.

Our local VA put one in a number of years ago. It broke down after about 5 years. The company that sold it to them at a cost of over 1M went out of business. They checked with another company and found that to get it up and running would cost about $350K. It's been sitting idle since 2006. In the 5 years it ran, they figure they saved about 60K in electricity.

My best coyote farm has a turbine on it, I don't see dead birds or bats in the ground, it would be a great trapping location if it was true, directly under turbine

I have read many, many opinions and letters or editorials on the wind farm subject. I have visited a few turbine sites. I have seen hundreds of "all at once blinking red lights) while driving to our elk hunts in Colorado or Wyoming. I know many oppose wind, many want wind, and many don't care either way.... it's just the way it is thinking. But I do have a question for all who want to reply. With the way we all use electricity in almost every aspect of our modern world (in huge huge demands and usage), where would YOU propose we get it from?? Keep in mind with hydro electric some will say it's bad as it floods many square miles of land and valleys behind the dam. Nuclear power some will say is very dangerous. Coal and gas plants many will argue is very polluting to our planet. Solar has it's drawback too. Also keep in mind the "not in my back yard, put it someplace else" mentality has a problem also. Someplace else is always someoneelse back yard. Any comments??