We get our drinking water from surface and groundwater. It is a precious natural resource we cannot live without. Water quality and wind turbines do not mix. The wind turbines can have a negative affect the groundwater.
Let’s look at the wind turbine. The steel tower of an industrial wind turbine is anchored in a concrete platform of more than a thousand tons of concrete with steel rebar, 30 to 50 feet across and anywhere from 6 to 30 feet deep. Pile-driving massive steel beams into the bedrock makes a way for contaminates to enter the groundwater.
In Douglas County fresh ground water is known to occur in unconsolidated and consolidated rock aquifers consisting chiefly of sedimentary limestones, shales, and sandstones. Some types of shale are known to have arsenic and uranium in them.
Once the turbine is up and running, the vibration caused by the turbine blades radiates down into the ground which vibrates the rock underground and further stirs up the groundwater keeping it too cloudy to drink. A study out of Canada reported the impact of wind turbine vibrations on aquifers, reviewed and concluded that there was a “general deterioration” in the quality of well water.
Wind turbines require oil to lubricate moving parts, leaking is a matter of when. The turbines do leak oil which contaminate the surface and groundwater plus the soil.
Many residents in Douglas County use well water. Plus, five towns–Baldwin, Eudora, Lecompton, Overbrook (Osage County) and Wellsville (Franklin County)–have well fields in Douglas County that provide the entire supplies for those towns.
Lawrence utilizes both surface water and ground water for its public supply.
Water is a precious commodity. Let’s protect it.
References:
www.windconcernsontario.ca/2022/08/29/
www.kgs.ku.edu/General/Geology/Douglas/gw04.html
https://torontosun.com/2017/09/11/concern-that-wind-turbines-are-polluting-ground-water
