Hey lets get together on this so those for and against have a compromise we can all live with. Those who will not come to the table should just be out of the loop. We need wind power and we need tourism and we need all kinds of jobs.

Yeah, Frederick, lets all get together and watch foreigners get all those jobs and the tourists refuse to come to Ludington because of those whirlbirds out in the lake and townships to get on board regardless of what the tax payers want. Do you really trust any form of government? I don't!

put them on top of consumers energy property by the project not in lake michigan

Who in their right mind would want to look at turbines in lake Michigan. WHo do you think will end up paying the cleanup bill when there is a problem. These have no business in any lake...

Hey Frederick do your homework before the meeting. Windfarms have been built all over Europe and a few in the United States. California, Cape Cod, I believe. Anyways the one they want to build here is twice the size of any of them. Other companies have done studies and place the windturbines at around 8km. This should tell you something. Also people have had complaints about vertigo and frequency issues at 2km. If you hadnt noticed the DNR and DEQ were recently combined to 1 dept. The committee involved with the new dept. has Dow and DTE Energy already on board. People need to be very cautious as to what they agree to on this. From what I gather this has not been researched properly and we are getting rushed,straight up bad policy.

I live in Oceana County and vote in every election and will work my hardest to see that any elected official that allows windmills in Lake Michigan loses their job! We do not need wind power. Michigan is losing population and the electric demand goes down proportionally. Chicago needs the power, so why not put the windmills in front of "Windy City".

It would be nice if there can be a compromise made on this project. I wonder if a different area might be more advantageous for everyone. I think a lot of people (me included) would like to see the project develop but not at its proposed location. I think that as it stands it would take more away from the local economy then it would give. Those pics of the wind turbines surrounding the light house was the thing that made up my mind. It for me as it stands is a no go. But that doesn't mean that the project can't be developed some how. It would be nice to have families and jobs move into the area instead of out.

This has to be one of the most idiotic plans ever devised. Two hundred windmills within 3 miles of shore will kill tourism in the area between Silver Lake and the power plant. Property values will disappear. Pentwater can close up shop! Windmills, yes but put them on land. The power plant property is perfect. Don't pollute one of the last resources we have - the views and navigation on Lake Michigan. The "compromise" is to put them on land. Pete

Burn coal save wind turbines....

Wind power, storage of electricity generated, equipment being adaptable to the electricity generated, cost, and on and on has not been studied sufficiently to warrant any type of discussion about a lease of any kind for Lake Michigan. To damage the beauty of the shoreline will adversely affect us all. I beg you to tread lightly and slowly. The potential damage done to the aquatic environment alone is enough to make everyone of us stop and take a long, long look. I say the only compromise is to not accept any part of this proposal. Jobs? Ha. For how long, for how many, for insiders or outsiders, etc. Come on folks, think, and don't be misled by misleading information!

1000s of jobs will go the first mover in this industry. They can be claimed by Ludington, and Mason County or they can go to some other city and county. In the end it will not change the fact that wind turbines are going to end up in front of the Pump station. It can happen in 3 to 5 years and we can be the recipient of an economic gift where all the supporting businesses make their homes in the Mason County and the Ludington area or it will happen in 15 to 20 year and all those jobs an all the supporting industry will go to some other county and city. Those who fear the development use strong language and state their fears like they were facts, they are not. History currently shows us that more tourists will come to see the turbines than will go away because they are there. History shows us that fishing will benefit from the extra surfaces given to grow the food for the fish and the fish will be plentiful. But more dust will be lifted and clouds of fear and untruth will be spread to stop this gift for the working class and middle class business people of Ludington and Mason County. If you want to grow your business, if you want to get retrained for one of these new jobs, if you want to be able to sell your home for a reasonable price, if you want to see Ludington grow instead of shrink then you had better stand up and let you voice be heard at these meetings and in you councilman’s office, and in your mayors office. Otherwise the land owners along the coast, many of them not even residents of our town or County will carry the day with their words and arguments of fear. This is a once on a century opportunity for you, for your children. It is a chance for your children to get and keep jobs here at home. If you want all those benefits stand up and be counted if not you can wait 15 to 20 years and the only difference will be that jobs went to some other town, some other county, some other people, but the turbines will be there in front of the pump station any way. Let's not let the chance of a life time slip away because of unfounded fears.

lets put it on the sears tower the wind blows there as well.

In the end we will not have anything to say about the outcome of this issue. This company wants local support to help their case but make no mistake, they will go forward with this project with or without our support and support from the local governments. In the end the only way to stop this is to enlist the help of our congressmen. Flooding them with emails and phone calls works wonders in situations like this. The media may be of help in getting the word out to the population outside of our counties and help from the tree-huggers wouldn't hurt either.

This proposal violates the recommendations of the Great Lakes Wind Council that wind turbines should not be placed closer than five miles to shore. The proposed area is flanked by two historic lighthouses, contains two state parks, and the only natural harbor between Ludington and White Lake. Every one of these features argues against the placement of this project in the proposed site.

I wonder how many of you who dont want wind power are driving 4 wheel drive gas hogs and have lots of electric toys at home and are also complainers of having american troops in the middle east that are there to protect our interest in OIL?? If we did not use so much energy that we have to import so much and send our money to the FOREIGNERS I think we would be better off in the long run.

Ludington and Silver Lake are National Treasures. Area needs to be preserved for it's unique features. I'm not a resident and therefore will not have a vote in this issue. I am a loyal summer tourist who loves the peace and tranquility of your area. Resident of Cincinnati, Ohio, who has promoted Tourism in Michigan to many friends and relatives. Many of those I have turned on to your area have become steady visitors. Living in a large industrial municipality I know what Electric Generating Plants do to the environment. The Ohio River Valley is one long series of coal powered electric generating plants. Boaters in our area avoid the Ohio River due to the barge traffic shuttling coal to power plants. Once beautiful shorelines are now enormous plants with huge stockpiles of coal and cooling towers sending water vapor into the air visible for miles. Residents of Mason and Oceana Counties live in Paradise and I hope you fight to keep it that way. If the wind turbines are installed, I'll still vacation in Michigan. However, I'll drive past Ludington with fond memories as I head further North to Manistee, Frankfort, Crystal Lake, Sleeping Bear Dunes, Empire, Leland, Northport, Suttons Bay, Traverse City, Torch Lake, Charlevoix, Petoskey, and the rest of Up North Country. Please work hard to stop wind turbines in Lake Michigan.

I'm another summer tourist for the last 16 years, I will be skipping Ludington area for visits as well, going north to Manistee and the surrounding areas. Those wind turbines sound awful.

The amount of ignorance and NIMBY-ism reflected in this comment thread, and the two others related to it, is troubling. The absence of critical thinking, and the presence of knee-jerk emotion, leads me to question the performance of our educational system. Here's one fact (and I've done the trigonometry to prove it, and would be happy to post the calculations): the apparent height of these turbines, at 3 mi from the shore, will look like a 2" matchstick held 10' away from your eyes. If that represents too much of a visual disruption for you, then you have a beef. (But then, I would ask: where were you during the construction of the Pumped Storage Project?) Some other facts: Most of the criticisms for land-based wind turbines stem from the number of birds destroyed by the blades. Siting the turbines > 3 mi offshore will place the bird migration routes (which hug the shore) away from the turbines. There are no issues with oil/lubrication discharge with current land-based wind turbines. Most in California, for instance, are sited in cattle grazing areas. The biggest argument against the siting, in my mind, has to do with Lake Michigan ice. Over the lifetime of the turbines, there will be at least several years when the lake will have substantial ice. Anyone who saw the damage south of Holland in the last decade, from wind-blown ice flows, can appreciate how strong a turbine must be to withstand such destructive force. For me, the builders must resolve this issue, because it has not occurred in other ocean-based sites, off the Atlantic coast, or in Denmark.

WAKE UP PEOPLE. These windmills will NOT look like "matchsticks" from 3 miles away. I have driven past them in TX and IL, and believe me, you can see them for miles, and they look much larger, and get bigger and uglier the closer you get (like out in your boat for a cruise). Why bring up the troops and gas guzzling thing? It has nothing to do with this. But for the record, I support and thank our troops for what they are doing, and I buy American, and try to buy on Main Street instead of at Wal-Mart, etc. etc. So back to the real issue, I think that the Great Lakes are NO PLACE for wind turbines. I think they should be land based, and far from anywhere they will be a nuisance, out of the path of migratory birds, not in the oceans and especially not in the waters of the greatest and most under-appreciated natural resource in North America -- the fresh water system known as the Great Lakes. By the way, Cape Cod and Long Island have successfully fought off these developments off their shorelines, and we can do it too. Stop writing here and get busy writing the congressmen, representatives, governor, etc.

Mr. van Pfahl, where on earth did you get the number of 1,000 jobs. Look at other projects and see how many local jobs are created beyond the construction phase. And even during construction, the high paying jobs will go to workers who have done this before and will be brought in for temporary work. Once construction is over, there will be a few maintenance jobs - which also may not go to local residents. I suggest you contact Scandia Wind and ask how many local jobs they will GUARANTEE, how long those jobs will last, and what they will pay. Also to Chip, the turbines will be only 2 miles offshore in Pentwater and Silver Lake. The Michigan Great Lakes Wind Council recommends wind farms be constructed 6 miles from an y shoreline used for recreational purposes. With the exception of a few small windfarms (20 turbines vs. 100-200) in industrial harbors in Europe, NO windfarm is this close to shore, so we have no idea what effect it will have on birds.