More Wind Power Industry Stuff & Nonsense from East County Magazine

[MineralMan]

Last edited Tue May 21, 2013, 02:03 PM - Edit history (1)

The Thot Plickens!

http://eastcountymagazine.org/node/13237

READER’S EDITORIAL: STOP POISONING OUR COMMUNITY! HERBICIDE SPRAYING IS WIND INDUSTRY’S TOXIC SECRET

“Pattern Energy is going to pollute what it couldn't destroy… Monsanto’s Roundup was the ingredient in Agent Orange--the defoliant sprayed in Viet Nam that harmed a generation of veterans and their children… This herbicide—a neurotoxin--is going to get carried downwind. Did Pattern fail to notice that there is still a community with children here in spite of its industrialization of the area with 112 turbines and a substation?”

By Linda Ewing, Ocotillo resident

May 14, 2013 (Ocotillo) -- Herbicide Mitigation? What is that? I heard these two disturbing words and felt panic.

I knew instinctively that it was going to have something to do with this Ocotillo Wind Energy Facility because nothing good has come from this controversial project since the day Pattern Energy uttered its first words of deception to the town of Ocotillo. Since the day the company first tried to convince us that its massive 438 foot-tall industrial-sized wind turbines were good for the economy. And yes, the very same day we realized that human lives were disposable and irrelevant in the statistical world of giant wind turbine developers.

I had to know. Why would a wind turbine project need herbicides? This had to be related to the Environmental Impact Report that Pattern Energy first blinded this community with and it definitely had to do with the off-site mitigation efforts that needed to be performed. What does all of this mean? Are you confused? Let me put it into simpler terms.

My Boldfacing. The statement is patently untrue, so why should anyone believe anything in this article, and why was no fact-checking applied? This calls into question anything that appears in this publication regarding wind electrical generation. It is bullshit.

Note: That boldfaced portion of the article has now been edited to correct the error, a week after publication.

[CJCRANE]

1. Is this related to *this* by any chance...

The goal was to make wind politically "toxic,"...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022871741

[MineralMan]

4. I suppose so. It's all nonsense.

This is the caliber of stuff that East County Magazine publishes. There is no fact checking. There is no research. Whatever nonsense someone writes is simply published if it fits to meme being promulgated. In this case, the meme is that Wind Power is Bad! Anything that supports that is fine, whether it is true or not.

In this case, the basic premise that claims that Roundup and Agent Orange are the same thing is false on its face. Both things kill plants, but they are otherwise not in any way alike.

[MineralMan]

2. Note: Agent Orange and Roundup Are Not the Same.

They're not the same chemical, so this article starts of on a completely incorrect premise.

http://kfolta.blogspot.com/2012/04/agent-orange-monsanto-and-little.html

Agent Orange was a defoliant weaponized by the US military during the Vietnam War. It was composed of a 50-50 mix of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T, 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid and 2,4,5 trichlorophenoxyacetic acid, respectfully. These compounds are auxins. Auxins are a class of plant growth regulator associated with cell division, elongation growth, and a large suite of other plant processes. These two auxins are synthetic mimics of the natural compounds. They work well at low concentrations because plants do not have a means to break them down easily. Essentially, a plant grows itself to death.

There was no glyphosate in Agent Orange.

[KamaAina]

9. The confusion probably stems from the fact that Monsanto did make a chemical used in Agent Orange

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange

Agent Orange is the combination of the code names for Herbicide Orange (HO) and Agent LNX, one of the herbicides and defoliants used by the U.S. military as part of its chemical warfare program, Operation Ranch Hand, during the Vietnam War from 1961 to 1971. Vietnam estimates 400,000 people were killed or maimed, and 500,000 children born with birth defects as a result of its use. The Red Cross of Vietnam estimates that up to 1 million people are disabled or have health problems due to Agent Orange.

A 50:50 mixture of 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D, it was manufactured for the U.S. Department of Defense primarily by Monsanto Corporation and Dow Chemical. The 2,4,5-T used to produce Agent Orange was later discovered to be contaminated with 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzodioxin (TCDD), an extremely toxic dioxin compound. It was given its name from the color of the orange-striped 55 US gallon (208 l) barrels in which it was shipped, and was by far the most widely used of the so-called "Rainbow Herbicides".

edit: but 2,4,5-T is not the same as Roundup (glyphosate).

[MineralMan]

20. Yes. That statement was just sloppy writing.

No fact checking. No facts, for that matter. The article is bullshit and should not have been published. It would not have been published without that basic fact checking by any reputable publication.

[FarCenter]

28. Glyphosate wasn't discovered as an herbicide until 1970.

[MineralMan]

29. Yes. That would have made it difficult to use

in Agent Orange in Vietnam, I'd think. Of course, you can buy glyphosate herbicides at the local hardware store. Not the case with Agent Orange, either. In fact, I have a Roundup sprayer in my garage that I use to kill grass coming up through a crack in my driveway and elsewhere on my property. I doubt that Agent Orange would do the job as well. I need to get out there and seal that crack pretty soon, too.

[FarCenter]

33. 2,4-D is commonly used -- $9.98 per quart concentrate at Home Depot

2,4,5-T was discontinued in the '70s.

The problem with both was contamination with 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzodioxin due to the manufacturing process. DoD probably wanted the cheapest herbicide possible.

[MineralMan]

34. When I was growing up, we used to spray diluted diesel fuel on

weeds in the orange orchards where I lived. It choked the weeds' respiration and killed them fairly quickly. I'm not sure what the diluent was, but it was probably Stoddard Solvent. Anyhow, it worked a treat on orchard weeds.

[uppityperson]

35. Thank you, was just looking that up also. I got to that bit and had to stop and research.

[Frustratedlady]

3. Just the portion you showed reeks of bad information.

They are really pulling out all the stops on fighting wind power.

[Buzz Clik]

5. "Monsanto’s Roundup was the ingredient in Agent Orange, the defoliant sprayed in Viet Nam" ....

Ummmm..

Nevermind. Facts are not the order of the day.

Whoever wrote this is an idiot.

There. I said it.

[MineralMan]

6. Ayup! Nobody even fact checked the basic premise of the article.

If they had, they'd have discovered that the statement was simply false. No Fact Checking: No Truth!

This publication should be considered completely unreliable as a source on wind energy issues. Anything written in it should be subjected to serious scrutiny. There is no fact checking applied. Whatever is written is printed without verification.

[KamaAina]

7. To be fair, most science reporting in the M$M is equally goofy

[MineralMan]

8. I've never seen a claim that Agent Orange and Roundup

are the same in an MSM article. Basic fact checking would find that not to be true in seconds.

[Buzz Clik]

10. No it isn't.

You usually have to peel back a layer or two to find the stupidity. This one was an alphabet soup of misinformation.

[winter is coming]

22. A lot of "goofy" science reporting is stuff that was simplified poorly, not stuff

that's demonstrably false.

[MNBrewer]

11. But the writer actually "felt panic"!

WHo are you to discount her feeling of panic?

[Brickbat]

12. That site is really kind of a shame.

A lot of people getting played.

[MineralMan]

14. So it seems. Either that or the people writing for it

are playing, rather than doing actual journalism. Journalism involves checking all facts before publication.

No Fact Checking: No Journalism!

[Brickbat]

16. Even if the people writing for it are playing, they're still getting played, because they're not

getting paid to play. It's painfully obvious.

You get what you pay for, every time.

[MineralMan]

17. I don't think the writers for that so-called publication are

paid at all. I could be wrong, but that's my understanding. Perhaps someone will confirm that for us. There are a lot of websites that pass as news sources that use unpaid writers. Professional journalists are paid for their work. That's the "professional" part. I know this, because I worked as a paid professional journalist for almost three decades. Sometimes I was not particularly well-paid, but sometimes I was paid handsomely.

Journalism is a profession, with standards. Presenting factual information is one of those standards. It is the most basic of those standards. Where there is no concern for facts, there is no journalism. There is something made up of words, but it is not journalism. And that applies to people who are paid to write, as well. If they write unfactual crap, they are not journalists at all. They are simply writers of words.

Facts are fundamental. Fact-checking is integral to all journalism. If it is not present, there is no journalism.

[Brickbat]

18. That's the impression I get as well.

[MineralMan]

13. East County Magazine Does Not Fact Check

what it publishes. This article makes that clear. It should not be considered a valid source of information on technical subjects. Period.

[MineralMan]

15. NOTE: This thread is about a publication, not about any

person.

[FSogol]

19. Ohhhh, we are all going on the ignore this for this one!

[MineralMan]

21. That's as may be, but that publication is on my permanent

ignore list. It is unreliable when it comes to facts, so I'll pay no attention to it.

[FSogol]

23. Did you see this post from Sid on that mag?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022859950#post186

[MineralMan]

25. I did. There's also a link to the Koch Brothers

from that publication's parent organization, I believe. I saw something to that effect in another thread.

[Cirque du So-What]

24. Who wrote this shit?

and will I be placed on 'ignore' for mentioning it?

[MineralMan]

26. The author's name is in the quotation. Not a DUer.

nt

[Cirque du So-What]

27. Yes, but

that's not nearly as funny.

[MineralMan]

30. Well, that's true enough, of course.

Funny wasn't really my goal in this OP, though. I did write a funny one earlier, though.

[Cirque du So-What]

31. True, I should have addressed the dreck

but I went for the cheap laugh instead.

[MineralMan]

32. I understand the humor in all of this, of course.

However, using that magazine, which is not actually a magazine at all, as a source on DU is not a good idea. If they are as fast and loose with facts as it appears, it's a poor source indeed. I will discount any information coming from it, unless I have the time to fact check the article personally, and I rarely have that much time.

So, despite the humor, there's a serious lesson here for DU, I think. Just because a website calls itself a magazine is no evidence that what is published there is worthy of serious consideration. This is just another example of that fact. The Internet is full of websites that are full of shit, along with many, many people who are willing to consume large quantities of that smelly matter. Everything must be questioned closely. That's unfortunate.

[hunter]

36. Poke around google maps, satellite view. The size of this project is not negligable.

Personally, as a Luddite and radical environmentalist, projects like this disgust me.

They do not "replace" either fossil fuels or nuclear power, they simply add to the amount of energy available for us to use.

The more energy this society has available, the greater our ability to trash the environment.

These wind turbines are a blight upon the natural landscape and will not improve the quality of our lives.

If we want to survive as a civilization we must greatly reduce our economic "productivity" as it is currently defined.

If we don't, mother nature will certainly do the job for us in her usual manner -- by killing off large numbers of us.

Sadly, it won't be so much the people who caused this climate change disaster who perish, it will be people who never owned a car, never had homes connected to an electrical grid, people who never set foot in a "big box" store.

[MineralMan]

37. Actually, I'm quite familiar with large wind farms from

my many years in California, and now in Minnesota. They're sprouting up everywhere, and have been in use in California for quite a long time. The first one I saw regularly was in Tehachapi, which was on the way from my coastal California home to Las Vegas. I made that drive a couple of times each year for several years. Most of the generators there were smaller than today's huge turbines, and they had a number of vertical axis wind turbans, too:



Most of the Darrieus turbines are no longer operating, though. In the late 1970s, I built a Savonius rotor turbine using two halves of a 55 gallon drum, rotating on a truck hub and bearing. It drove two automotive alternators, which charged a bank of 12-volt batteries that fed a 1500 watt inverter (A rather expensive item in those days). I used that system to light my backyard workshop and to power hand power tools. It worked reasonably well, but annoyed a neighbor somewhat, so I stopped using it after a few years and installed normal wiring to the shop. It would have been a fairly good system for lighting a remote cabin or something, though, off the grid.

It takes a large installation to create megawatt quantities of electricity. So that's hardly surprising.

Even less surprising, though, is the attitude of Luddites. Since you claim that status, you have told me what I need to know about your opinion on the matter. Further, since you are posting here on this forum, and included a satellite image, you are not actually a Luddite, since you seem quite comfortable with today's technology.

[hunter]

47. There are many dead abandoned wind turbines in California.

I'm a Luddite in the sense I think we should be shutting down high energy and environmentally disruptive technologies like superhighways, electric power networks, airlines, extreme monoculture and factory farms, suburbs, and "consumer society" in general. I'd like to see dams removed. I'd like to see communities reworked to make automobile ownership unnecessary and even undesirable.

Building new stuff, even wind farms, digs the hole we are trapped in deeper.

I have zero expectation our civilization will conform to my own vision of utopia. Instead we will burn more fossil fuels until the climate changes so drastically the world economy collapses.

It's not difficult to imagine the dams on the Colorado River going stagnant causing a mass exodus of people from Arizona, Nevada, and Southern California. It's not difficult to imagine events like hurricane Sandy becoming more frequent and the oceans rising, forcing people out of existing urban areas and closing ports.

We can retreat from this unsustainable high energy resource intensive economy in a humane, orderly way, and avoid some of the pain to come, but we won't.

[NCTraveler]

38. Some of that site reads like the Onion.

Well, a poorly written version of the Onion.

http://eastcountymagazine.org/node/13184

[MineralMan]

39. Yes, well...you're right.

I will no longer be reading anything from that site. It's not a source of reliable information.

[SidDithers]

40. My favourite headline from ECM...

BLADLESS TURBINE MAKERS CLAIM TURBINES COULD PRODUCE MORE POWER WITH LESS PROBLEMS
http://eastcountymagazine.org/taxonomy/term/21459



Maybe the ECM editor should spend less time trying to convince DUers that the "stray voltage" from wind turbines cause cancer, and more time actually editing.

Sid

[zappaman]

41. Not sure what you find so funny

Apparently bladless fans are a real thing...

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/80782357/

[NCTraveler]

42. The article I linked says a blade came off and flew nearly a mile.

How fast do those things spin. To get something of those dimensions to fly nearly a mile is quite a feat.

They also decapitate people. On purpose. I am not talking about a work accident, I mean hunt out and cut their heads off.

Nothing but a bs hit piece. That is what it is.

[winter is coming]

45. I think I found the source for that claim.

If you go to this website http://www.caithnesswindfarms.co.uk/page4.htm, you'll see the the claim, "Pieces of blade are documented as travelling up to one mile."

If you click on the link for "attached detailed table" it will download a PDF of accident statistics. The print is tiny, so you'll have to zoom in. Line 1247 describes an incident that occurred in Kansas during a tornado. I haven't seen anything from local papers mentioning blade pieces a mile away, but they do mention wind turbine damage from a tornado.

[NCTraveler]

43. I am not kidding, this is a quote used for the article.

”We are native people, native to this land. This is the genocide of the 21st century,” said Elliott. “This is an epidemic and we need help.”

Then these gems.

"Wind Turbine Syndrome", "genocide", "cluster of cancer cases", "decapitation", blades flying "nearly a mile".

This is amazing fabrication. Truly amazing. Backwoods rwingers say the most outrageous things.

[SidDithers]

44. Boggles the mind, don't it...

Sid

[MineralMan]

46. That, I am afraid, is the stock in trade of East County Magazine.

It's misnamed, though. It's not a magazine at all, but a website written and ?edited? by unpaid people. That it is being used as a source on DU is amazing. It is not a source of factual information on much of anything that requires any investigation, as has been seen over quite a long period of time.

It's just a glorified blog that pretty much publishes anything any of its volunteer writers care to write. There's no fact checking, no copy editing, and no quality control at all. Anything published in the East County Magazine should be thoroughly checked for accuracy before being believed. It should not be used as a source anywhere. It is simply not a reliable source of information.

[Whisp]

61. That is outrageous. And we are called dim-witted for not believing this shit? n/t

[HappyMe]

48. You know, if this was a magazine

with stupid celebrity stories - okay.

But if they are going to write about energy sources and pesticides, they need to check the damn facts.

It seems that they are just dead set against any new, clean energy source. My son doesn't live that far a a bunch of those big wind turbines. I texted him yesterday about any noise or other weirdness. He said he hasn't noticed anything. A guy he works with lives even closer, still no ill effects.

[REP]

49. They've been a leader in spreading SmartMeter woo

A small sampling:
http://www.eastcountymagazine.org/node/5888
http://eastcountymagazine.org/node/8642
http://eastcountymagazine.org/node/8142

How a real newspaper covered the story in the last link:
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/localnews/ci_19540980

[MineralMan]

51. Yup. The Luddite Times.

We had one of those smart meters installed in our home. This one was for the water meter, which is located in our basement. Previously, the meter had been connected to a box on the side of the house that the meter reader plugged something into to read the meter. I was there for the installation and had a nice chat with the installer. I specifically asked him about situations where people objected to the things.

He said that there were a few such people and that most of them lived in houses clogged with trash and other signs of someone who had some sort of other issues. He also said that most people didn't give a damn, as long as they didn't have to pay anything to have it installed.

Now, they read the meters from the street.

[tammywammy]

53. I have a smart water and a smart electric meter

No issues with either. I really like the smart electricty meter. I get a weekly email from my electricity provider that details usage down 15 min increments.

[MineralMan]

54. The technology they use is similar to cell phones.

The same people who are afraid of cell phones are afraid of these meters. The difference is that the first device is held next to your brain, and the other devices are no-brainer uses of technology. Neither do any apparent harm. Technology should not be feared as a default position. Instead, it should be examined for risks. If none are found, then no harm is done by technology.

Luddites oppose all technology and wish for us to live as people did in the 18th century. I guarantee that they would not like that reality, nor the political realities of the 18th century.

[REP]

55. I can go on line and get see my electric use/cost by hour

And it was pretty nice to see what a difference going to all LEDs made.

[tammywammy]

56. I like it too.

My electric usage was $19 last week, and it was up from the week before. So I was all "wait, what the heck was I doing last week???" Then I remembered I got a new fancy front loader washer & dryer and I washed a ton of clothes testing it. LOL! But I can tell when my usage isn't within the normal range for me.

[REP]

57. For few days we were obsessively tracking everything

We were running the pool pump for longer than usual to clear it, but that wasn't what was causing the (minor) spike - it was the steam shower. We got all Energy Star, high efficiency or otherwise low-use appliances for this house, and even though it's much bigger than our last apartment (and has a pool and greenhouse), the electric bills have been lower.

We had a SmartMeter at the apartment, too - undoubtedly my brain is controlled by them now

[REP]

58. I remembered this particularly well

as it occurred early in my Hosting adventures and my relationship to my SmartMeter is still questioned

[MineralMan]

59. I remember that one, too.

There have been several questionable things posted from that source. That's one of the reasons I simply discount any material sourced from East County Magazine. I don't have time to fact check them, and they don't bother, so I disregard such postings or express my concerns when they are posted.

[hunter]

60. I love my smart meter... (sarcasm) They can turn my electricity on and off by remote control.

Used to be the electric company would have to send a guy to my house when I couldn't pay the bill. Then they'd have to send a guy out again to turn it back on. The local office directed the entire process and they could adapt to the customer's circumstances. I'm sure their were some abuses and irregularities in the process, maybe local office tyrants granting favors to their friends and shutting down others, but it was a very human process.

Now a computer turns off my power by remote control, no humans are involved, it's automatic according to some formula. Then I'm forced to scrounge up the money from people who are paying me later, and later, and later, take it to the electric company office in our town, where they have no authority to turn my power back on themselves. A reconnect has to be authorized by someone in a distant city, who then types in the code that turns my power back on by remote control.

My dad had an average working class job with excellent health benefits and a good retirement plan that still supports him and my mom comfortably.

My wife and I have a greater income than our parents did, even inflation adjusted, the same size houses, but our standard of living is lower in most ways because our health insurance is crappy and horribly expensive, we always have medical bills and college expenses we can't pay, and we have no unions representing us, demanding, at the very least, that we are paid on time.

The giant electric companies or health insurance companies are assured their revenue streams because their computers can cut off customers who are behind in their payments instantly, in effect shedding all the irritations of an unstable, sputtering economy onto their smaller customers who pass those irritations onto their customers.

The giant corporate borg is a machine that feels nothing, and the directors of these corporations paying themselves unconscionable multi-million dollar salaries and bonuses are sociopaths.

Call me a conspiracy theorist, I think a lot of "woo" is generated and encouraged by the very same large corporations it is directed against. The "woo" about smart meters obscures the actual reasons the power companies are installing them, reasons that do not benefit the customer or ordinary worker in any way. The rich get richer, and everyone else gets poorer.

[Rex]

50. What do you expect from an online paper that has no editor!?

The typos alone make me wonder if it is all written and approved of by a 5 year old. I am HAPPY this garbage rag is getting exposed for the LIES and trash journalism. It is an embarrassment to whoever publishes it. I guess it is a collection of people that lack any shame in their bodies. Funny, sounds just like another group we know.

[MineralMan]

52. Personally, I expect nothing from such a website.

It's not a place I'd visit for anything. If I want news from that area, there are legitimate news outlets that serve the area. My only exposure to the East County Magazine has been here on DU. Each time it has come to my attention, the article linked to has been full of errors, sometimes very large errors.

I no longer click the links, but know that if I did, the information would be largely incorrect. It is simply not a valid source of factual information.

[Rex]

64. True and we are accustomed to getting good factual information here on DU.

I think that is why when woo stuff is posted, we are all over it like fire ants.

[madinmaryland]

62. It is an editorial, which to me implies it is the author's opinion. Is that what the emag is

all about, reader's opinions? To me, an editorial is not journalism, just someone's opinion.

[MineralMan]

63. It's an editorial with incorrect facts as its premise.

Do you have a problem with my pointing out those incorrect facts or the conclusion I draw from that and other information about that website? If so, please explain what the problem is.

Opinions based on incorrect information need fact-checking. Otherwise it is a worthless opinion. That publication publishes what it calls news, as well. That news, too, is often based on incorrect information. That has been amply demonstrated in many cases right here on DU.

Pointing out incorrect information is a responsible thing to do, don't you think? If a website or publication consistently posts incorrect information, it is unreliable as a source. That is the case with this website. Do you disagree?

[madinmaryland]

65. I don't disagree with you that the opinion expressed in the editorial is based

on incorrect facts and as such should be taken with a grain of salt.

I did not check the facts in the stories in the magazine, and as such cannot assume that there inconsistencies, incorrect facts, or any other anomolies that would lead me to believe those stories are incorrect. Have you fact checked the other stories?

That being said, we know that many conservative editorial writers (Charles Krauthammer, et al), play loose and fast with the facts, but does that make the NY Times and Washington Post worthless publications? (Well, they do have to live down the fact that it was their shitty "journalism" and journalist standards that led to the Iraq War).

As I said, my only disagreement is that you are judging the entire publication on an editorial, and not the actual articals and stories in the said publication, unless I missed those comments elsewhere in this thread.

[MineralMan]

68. I am judging the website based on many instances.

[MineralMan]

66. Note: East County Magazine has now edited

the offending sentence. That's a good thing.

However, it should have been fact checked before publication, and my criticism stands.

[Brickbat]

67. I was thinking about that the other day when the self-described editor of that publication was

running through threads about wind power trying to answer people's questions about and challenges to the original stories. Editors really should edit the stories before they run, rather than after. It saves times and effort. On the other hand, it does require someone who knows what s/he's doing. Editing is a skill that not many have.

[MineralMan]

69. It's not really editing. It's fact checking before publication.

Corrections for specific things are a good idea. However, correcting one error does not fix the other errors in an article. It's a clean-up action, rather than responsible editorial oversight.

When I was working as a professional journalist, the publications I worked for were active in fact checking. Because of that, I was also very active in fact checking my own articles. I hated it if a fact checker found something I missed or got wrong. The process begins with the writer, and all article should be fact checked by the publication, as well.

Such careful fact checking is less and less common these days, with budget cuts and staffs overworked, unfortunately. All too often, error are never spotted until an alert reader sees the error. That's really bad for the reputation of the publication or the website. If it happens often, the publication or website earns a reputation for unreliability.

It's a growing problem, and readers who care about factual information are often put in the position of doing their own fact checking. That's a very sad state of affairs.