Letter: Wind farm would be beneficial to area

It is wonderful to learn through the Waterloo Courier that the firm RPMA is interested in building a 70 megawatt wind farm in Black Hawk County.

Since 2009, wind cost has dropped 66 percent and solar energy 85 percent. Wind and solar are the cheapest sources for producing our needed electricity.

Transitioning the electricity sector away from fossil fuels is no longer an environmental imperative, it is an economic one. The time is now to radically adjust for a paradigm where wind and solar form the backbone of our electricity grid.

One wind turbine pays between $25,000-$40,000 in county and school property taxes per year, depending on its size and the local tax rate and landowners are handsomely paid for the use of their land. Also, farmers can plant crops right to the base of the turbine.

Clearly turbines must be placed outside migratory birds flyways.

Renata Sack

Waterloo