The Lyme Town Board recently passed a very restrictive wind zoning law. They claim their restrictions were based on the will of the people as shown by the wind survey. The person who formulated most of the questions and tallied the results has based his findings on very subjective questions and drawn his own conclusions about what the answers meant.

For example, the questions about setbacks from the waterfront or from hamlet and village had the following choices: 1,500 feet, 3,000 feet, 4,500 feet or "not near the water, hamlet or village." At last half the respondents checked "not near." Some people also checked one of the other choices. The individual who tallied these results concluded that all people who checked "not near" meant more than 4,500 feet.

No one without psychic powers could possibly know what each individual meant by this answer. This law now has 4,500-foot setbacks from everything, making it impossible for a wind energy company to locate turbines in Lyme.

A decibel sound level chart gave us choices with no accurate examples of dba's included. The choices ranged from under 5 to over 20. Several dba charts I checked listed the sound of a whisper at 20 decibels. But for those who don't understand these technical terms, the following comment was made with this question. "In other words, for the next 20 years, anytime of day, seven days a week, 52 days a year, to what noise level are you willing to have your current quiet rural ambient sound increased to, with the installation of wind turbines?" So much for objectivity and professionalism.

I am even more angered by the fact that the last item was a comment section which asked people to "comment on any issue you feel is important to you. Feel free to add paper."

Most people did comment. Many put a great deal of effort and thought into their replies. Several wrote excellent letters. But neither the Planning Board, nor the town board, nor any committee read them.

The last sentence on the survey said, "Thank you for your opinion, it is very important to us."

Julia Gosier

Three Mile Bay