Humboldt turbines generate ill winds By Tom Murphy News-Chronicle By now (though the odds are against it), the Humbolt Town Board would have put to rest a family's proposal to erect four, 120-foot windmills on their property. Randy and Debra Heurkens want whatever power is generated to light and heat their home. Any excess (thanks to the green lobby and the legislature) would be sold to Wisconsin Public Service Corp. To no one's surprise, some of the Heurkens' neighbors objected, citing health, comfort and safety concerns. The neighbors did not mention aesthetics, perhaps the most important and realistic impact of the windmills on any neighborhood. It certainly is normal to be concerned about your family's health and welfare - and your investment in your home - when a neighbor comes up with a cockamamie idea like planting four windmills, each nearly half a football field in height, and planting them almost in your back yard. The idea is ominous. The shadows are nearly as bad. As of this writing, the windmill farm overlooking Lake Winnebago on the Calumet-Fond du Lac county line is on hold. Neighbors have concerns about the plans of an interloper to erect a couple of dozen of the ugly behemoths. All in the name of renewable energy - a couple of words that don't quite ring true at this stage of windmill development. Then there's the pair of experimental patches in Kewaunee County. They continue - sporadically - to turn out expensive electricity. They also continue to blight the landscape. As you approach the Rock Garden Supper Club on Highway 57 south of Dyckesville, the plat of whirling dervishes burst through your windshield, scarring the landscape and wrecking a beautiful hillside scene some 10 miles distant. Driving east on Highway 54 just out of Walhain, a glance to the north finds the same bunch of elongated pinwheels despoiling the bucolic scene. From the 12th tee at North Brook Country Club, a view away from the course yields eight or so of the monsters some eight miles away. Best to fix your gaze west toward the green. Those concerns with the Humboldt windmills elevate as the ugly, expensive and inefficent machines move closer in to urban developments. Yes, a man's property is his domain and his home is his castle. But there are rules regarding swimming pools and satellite television dishes and dogs and rv and trailer storage and fences. So, too, must there be rules on the windmills. There are legitimate health concerns about stray voltage, but they can be miminized, if not eliminated, with correct installation. The same holds true for the few dairy farmers who claim that stray electricity generated by a utility severely reduces milk production. Although juries tend to side with the individual farmer, more often than not there are other causes to the decline in milk output. Back to Humboldt. We hope town officials deny the request to build the windmills. They are intrusive and ugly and can be noisy. In the case of Kewaunee County, they were erected in two plats by WPS and Madison Gas & Electric. They were forced to do so because the legislature listened to environmentalists and forced the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin to issue orders to utilities to develop alternative energy sources: solar, photo voltaic, etc. None of those are as intrusive and visually repugnant as windmills. WPS, which most often has its head on straight, complied silently. To date, utility spokesmen are extra careful not to stir up a fight when asked about the windmills' efficency and efficacy. On the other hand, the relatively tiny MG&E is joyful. About four percent of their customers voluntarily pay a premium to enjoy wind power. But what can you expect from Madison? You may recall it is the place that in the mid-1970s declared itself, thanks to its granola legislative delegation, a nuclear-free zone. Last one out of Madtown, please turn off the lights. Curbside: The silly season of signing National Football League rookies is upon us. The signing bonuses are obscene. They're driven by greedy agents and a cadre of egomaniacal owners who delight in dispensing dollars like doughnuts. The players are spoiled, no doubt. So, too, that cadre. But the players enter the pro system that way: Witness the Mississippi State University booster who loaned a promising MSU recruit $750 to buy set of tires for his pickup truck, and the player's mother repaid the booster the same day. C'mon!