Sourced from Piatt County Journal-Republican.com
Ryan Bauer, an operations manager with RAS Aviation, a helicopter crop-dusting firm based in Mansfield, opened testimony on Thursday, the 11th night of hearings. Bauer said the company services a 50- to 60-mile radius around Mansfield, covering as many as 16 different counties.
“We have a fair amount of experience in working in and around different wind farms in Central Illinois,” he said. “We have concerns about property values like everybody else, but our main concern is safety. Our pilots have continuously stated their concerns.”
When approaching a field, officials at the company have to determine how to spray the field based on the geography of the land, the wind direction, telephone lines, tree lines and the wind turbines add another dimension of conditions that have to be factored in before spraying a field, he said. A sprayed field can add 10 to 15 bushels of corn per acre, he said.
Read the full article at the Piatt County Journal-Republican
