A lawsuit in which residents living near the Lake Winds wind plant south of Ludington claimed the facility was making people sick has been settled out of court. Cary Shineldecker, one of the plaintiffs in the case, isn’t allowed to discuss details of the settlement, but is still allowed to talk about the alleged negative health effects that can be suffered by those who live near such facilities.
“What I think is different about this settlement is that, although the details of the settlement are confidential, I’m not gagged from speaking out about the problems with wind energy,” Shineldecker said. “I think everything we’ve done here has helped the community and residents. For too long, supporters of wind energy have been able to silence and discredit those who have to live with the effects of it.
“We saw how they silenced Jerry Punch and his group,” Shineldecker continued. “When his group was working on a study that refuted what wind energy supporters wanted to be reported about the health impacts of wind turbines, they (the wind energy supporters) shut them up.”
On April 1, 2013, a group of 17 residents who lived near the Lake Winds wind plant – others joined the group later – filed a lawsuit against Consumers Energy in Mason County Circuit Court. The lawsuit alleged that people were experiencing dizziness, sleeplessness, headaches and other physical symptoms primarily due to noise generated by the wind plant’s 56 giant wind turbines, which the plaintiffs claimed had been erected too close to homes.
“We filed the lawsuit based on health impact, property value loss and loss of enjoyment and use of our property,” Shineldecker said.
Lake Winds is the first wind plant developed by Consumers Energy. The $250 million facility was constructed as part of the utility’s efforts to meet the state’s renewable energy (wind) mandate. The lawsuit brought by Shineldecker and his co-plaintiffs was only the first one involving the Lake Winds plant. Before the end of 2013, Mason County had declared that the wind plant was not in compliance with its noise ordinance. Consumers Energy took the county to court over that determination. It lost at the Circuit Court, and that case is currently under appeal.
According to Shineldecker, the residents’ lawsuit was resolved during the late summer and autumn of 2014.
“It was just about to go to trial; in fact I was in court waiting to be the first to testify, when we were told a settlement had been reached,” Shineldecker said. “It took about two months to work out the wording; then ours was actually finalized the week of Dec. 17.
“To me, we were helping others by being willing to take a stand,” Shineldecker added. “One of these days the facts are going to come out. Twenty years from now the health impacts of living with these industrial wind turbines will be common knowledge. It will be like the way it happened with cigarettes. But right now those who know the truth are a minority. The talking points used by AWEA (American Wind Energy Association) haven’t changed from what they were saying five years ago. I believe that in our democracy, right will win in the end, but only after a lot of sacrifices have been made.”
Shineldecker also said that his family’s property, which he is selling off in portions, is now going for 78 percent of its appraised value.
David Wand, deputy director of strategic communications for AWEA, did not respond when offered the opportunity to comment. Consumers Energy declined to comment as well.
Michigan Capitol Confidential is the news source produced by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Michigan Capitol Confidential reports with a free-market news perspective.
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'Free' Community College
Not a very sound idea
President Obama recently announced his goal to provide two years of “free” community college for American workers. This has been met with cheers from community college leaders, high school administrators, and plenty of Americans.
Such cheers, however, are not such a clear sign that President Obama would have us believe in the wisdom of providing free community college education. First, let’s not pretend that this is going to result in saving the country money on education — it merely changes who foots the bill. Instead of people attending community colleges paying for their own education, the American taxpayer will be tasked with doing this. Second, there is no reason to suspect that this policy will actually help anyone.
Using data from the Michigan Community College NETwork, we can clearly see that while tuition rates at community colleges have remained relatively steady, community college enrollment in Michigan has actually declined over the last three years. This suggests that fewer people are finding community college to be a worthwhile endeavor.
According to data from the Michigan Community College Association, the current community college completion/graduation/transfer rate is an abysmal 52 percent (up from 44 percent in 2008). This means almost half of all students who enroll in a community college program fail to complete, graduate or transfer to a four-year institution. Put another way, almost half of all people who enroll in community college pay tuition but fail to obtain any type of degree, effectively throwing their money away. President Obama’s proposed plan will do nothing to address this and instead will likely set more people up for failure.
The problem with community college, and college in general for that matter, is not the cost, as every year millions of people around the country choose to enroll in some type of post-secondary education program. The problem is that these institutions are failing to provide students with an adequate education in a dynamic and increasingly global economy. While some may point to a recent study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York as evidence that college is still worthwhile, these statistics are based on averages which may hide underlying characteristics of great importance.
For example, after John Elway graduated from Stanford University in 1983 with a degree in economics, the average salary of students graduating from Stanford with an economics degree was several hundred thousand dollars per year, which was significantly higher than the average salary of economics majors from other institutions. Obviously, this statistical quirk was not because the Stanford economics program was somehow special; it was because they had John Elway, who was earning millions of dollars in the NFL. By the same token, college may be worth it on average, but the millions of unemployed and underemployed college graduates in society today certainly don’t feel that way and rightfully so. Instead of trying to lower the cost, we should instead find ways to increase the benefit of furthering one’s education beyond the high school level.
One way to do this would be to instead provide students who prefer it with a voucher or tax credit for job training rather than encouraging them to enroll in a system that fails to meet their needs. Under this system, the federal government would not be telling students to enroll in a broken system, but would instead free them to attend a program that they actually want to attend and where they are more likely to succeed.
Michigan Capitol Confidential is the news source produced by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Michigan Capitol Confidential reports with a free-market news perspective.
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