I have a confession to make.

I am a NIMBYist.

There is something out there I don't want in my backyard, or my front yard, or anywhere on this little piece of Mother Earth that I call home. I don't care if it goes in my neighbor's yard, they have that right, and if it becomes part of my horizon, I can deal with it.

That thing is an oil well.

Let me explain why. Daily, I see the scars from the previous rounds of heightened oil activity, and am aware of the poor policing the industry and KCC exercised. The last oil production on this ground was over 20 years ago. Over eight times, they penetrated the earth on just 155 acres, going down more than 1,000 feet. The only reason the last well was kept "in production" was so that salt-water from oil wells on the ridge miles away could use it for disposal. One night, the well couldn't take all the water, but it kept coming. The salt water flowed over the dike and into the stream. Even now, more than 20 years later, not even bindweed grows in that spot. Unlike most chemical spills, the oilmen didn't have to remove their contamination; the poisoned dirt is still there. The producer only had to pay $500 damages. Other spots on this ground bindweed and sunflowers find too polluted to grow after all these years, each of them the scars of oil exploration.

The oil industry has had its impact on the animal life in this area. At one time, we had a pair of eagles nesting here. When the local oil patch was electrified one area became a bird zapper of sorts. Many birds were lost before the situation was remedied. Poorly kept fences don't keep cows from being decapitated by a pump jack. One home in the wind farm area lost their water well to oil pollution.

I am a NIMBYist because this ground has too many scars from the repeated attempts to find oil.

Is it just a coincidence that the oil funded opposition to the wind farm blossomed shortly after we informed the oil lease hounds we don't want them to "squeeze every last drop of oil from my ground" (their words, not mine)? I don't think so.

When the zoning board first started meeting, I thought fellow board member and oil man Leo Dorzweiler was being nice to me out of respect, but I soon realized he just wanted me to be one of his puppets. When I didn't take the bait, he unleashed his wolves. I can't figure out why. The oil industry is exempt from zoning. If you bought (or grandpa gave you) a few acres in the country to build on, and it's leased for oil development, they can put an oil well in your garden or small horse pasture. No protests allowed. It was that way before zoning and it's still that way.

After what some oilmen have done to this area, the land here deserves to host a wind farm to make up for the damage.

Jo Kraus

1049 Yocemento Ave.