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Wind power’s meant to be clean, green and safe as houses, but these things have a habit of hurling deadly chunks of ice at people on foot, motorists and the buildings people occupy.

Throwing 10 tonne blades hundreds of metres, and chunks thereof, for kilometres isn’t the limit of the wholly unnecessary risk created by giant industrial wind turbines.

No, in cooler climes, neighbours are trained in the art of dodging lethal flying chunks of ice, too.

To the uninitiated, ‘ice throw’ (another wind industry euphemism) might sound like the kind of stunning move that figure skaters, Torvill and Dean used to win Olympic medals and plaudits, in their heyday.

To those in the know, it’s just another terrifying part of being forced to live in an industrial nightmare, shoe-horned into once safe, peaceful and pleasant rural communities.

In the 2017 northern Winter, we reported on a family of Germans (see above) who were lucky to survive their icy brush with so-called ‘green’ energy: Wind Turbine Ice Capades: German Wind Farm Neighbour Cheats Death, Dodging Flying Ice Chunks

In February 2018, students were lucky to survive when huge chunks went through the roof of a College in the US: Deadly Cool: Wind Turbine Throws Ice Chunks Into US College

Shortly after we’d reported on the frozen and potentially lethal chunk lobbed at College Students in Gardner, Massachusetts, another report emerged of a truck and its driver being turned into a frightening form of renewable energy ‘target’: New Ice Age Begins: Ice Chunks Thrown from Wind Turbines Threaten Lives, Smashing Buildings and Passing Trucks

In an effort to downplay the deadly seriousness of huge chunks of ice flying from the tips of 60m wind turbine blades (those tips travelling in excess of 350 km/h), threatening life and limb, the euphemism “ice throw” has been replaced by the even more playful “ice sling”. [Note to Ed: perhaps an ice sling would be even more fun with gin and lemon?]

Commissioners again discuss wind tower ice sling

The Elgin Review

Lynell Morgan

16 January 2020

Wind turbines and winter storms sometimes mean ice sling, particularly in Antelope County.

The issue of ice sling was again front and center before the Antelope County Commissioners (ACC) for their first meeting of 2020.

Zoning Administrator Liz Doerr told commissioners established procedures to follow when there are reports of ice sling were followed. Once notified, she said she contacted the ICC number for Invenergy, located in Chicago, to alert them of the situation. By the time she contacted the ICC, they had also been contacted by the Antelope County Sheriff’s Department. Doerr said she was notified of the problem by ACC Chairman Dean Smith and county resident Judy Wilcox.

Doerr said, by the time she contacted Chicago, Tower 222 had been shut down and Tower 223 was in the process of being shut down.

Wilcox, who has raised concerns before about wind tower farms in the county, said more needs to be done to address ice sling, suggesting the commissioners implement a fine to be assessed if towers where ice sling is occurring and landing on county roads. She said the safety of county residents is in question on county roadways when such conditions exist.

If there are no financial repercussions, then there’s no incentive for wind farms to shut down towers slinging ice on roadways.

Doerr said it was her belief that the wind farm (Prairie Breeze) was following the conditions set forth in their conditional use permit.

She said there is nothing on the books which would allow her to fine wind farms in such instances, adding that any penalties or fines need to be handed down by the court system.

The matter was not resolved as discussions will continue on ice sling and how best to handle conditions here in Antelope County.

Elgin Review