Throwing Money To The Wind

Wind turbines are a favorite tool in the left’s green energy arsenal. Amazingly, these things are even more useless than electric cars. Costly to construct, ineffective at their peak, and impossible to dispose of after their short useless existence.

A turbine project off the coast of Virginia Beach is stirring up issues for the residents.  Dominion Energy is currently developing a project with 176 turbines off the coast of what used to be a popular vacation destination. The unsightly addition, which assuredly will affect visitation in the future, may also run off some locals who feel that they have been misled.

“It’s disrupting our daily lives. At 2 a.m. the other morning, I woke up to the room shaking,” said Julie Brown of Virginia Beach to WTKR-TV. “It wasn’t the noise; it was the shaking. You think there is an earthquake. I go over and look out the window and can see the lights, and they’re working on it.”

In their typical denial and defensive position, Dominion Energy officials have stated that they will attempt to minimize the noise as the $9 billion project progresses. They mentioned to residents at a recent town hall meeting that they were working on ways to muffle or buffer the noise.

However, according to Brown, it isn’t working. “The wind blanket right now is a joke. There’s a wind blanket. It’s literally like a piece of paper hanging.”

According to WTKR-TV, Homeowner John Knight installed soundproofing on his bedroom window and is now dealing with a crack in the wall that he believes was caused by the project.

“We’ve been having a lot of problems in the neighborhood with houses shaking, walls cracking, tiles cracking,” he said.

He said the project is nothing but “24-hour-a-day work that’s keeping us up at night. We’re really concerned about the long-term damage to our home.”

Virginia Beach Vice Mayor Rosemary Wilson stated, “Dominion is attempting to minimize this disruption. I contacted Dominion and expressed, ’24/7, are you serious? That’s too much for anyone to handle.”

But the noise is not the only concern. The new turbines will also be visible from the shore, which residents say was not part of the original plan when the project was pitched as a great idea, according to WAVY-TV.

“Citizens feel misled,” Wilson said. “They didn’t know you’d be able to see the turbines.”

“The citizens and us as leaders felt misled by Dominion, about the appearance of the wind turbines,” Councilman Worth Remick added.

Dominion has had turbines in the region for years as a pilot project. The new turbines are 200 feet taller, which was not fully communicated to the community, as reported by WAVY. In 2018, Dominion Energy stated that the turbines “will not be visible from the Virginia Beach shoreline.”

Jeremy Slayton, the project representative, stated that residents were informed that the pilot turbines were shorter than the ones planned for the full project. However, when WAVY pointed out that the visibility issue was not related to the height of the turbines, Slayton could not refer to any specific presentation where visibility concerns were addressed beyond the pilot turbines.

Virginia Beach is a microcosm of the way the left operates. They push their agenda, lie to get in the door, and then when they execute their plan, it is always worse than what they told you.

A lesson that the locals in what used to be a beautiful beach community are now learning.