Why don't they just keep the turbines underground where they can't be seen and pop them up at night or when when I need to inflate our bike tires?

How is it that they can afford to just pay complainers $5000? Because they make so much on the subsidy from the taxpayers. Even though wind power is very unreliable, just like the wind. This is another Free Lunch.

At least something is going on in Ione now.

Sadly they have slated several hundred turbines for the top of Steens mountain. Ugh.

Question is asked: "How is it that they can afford to just pay complainers $5000? Because they make so much on the subsidy from the taxpayers. Even though wind power is very unreliable, just like the wind. This is another Free Lunch."

While not at all wishing to defend the business energy tax credits that have turned into essentially nothing more than a piece of the great wealth transfer conveyor (from the lower classes to the upper), I think you are mistaken here. $5k to buy an easement and release from all noise claims is sharp dealing (extremely so). Considering the cost of lawyering to defend noise complaints (and the potential risk of any limitations that might result), every possible complainant eliminated for a measly $5k is money in the bank.

It appears you don't really get how profitable utilities are -- how they are the real whales of the lobbying zoo, because they have so.damn.much.money and are so huge that they are part of the background. $5k doesn't even make it into their books as a rounding error in a calculation.

Oh, and wind isn't unreliable. It's intermittent, yes, but that's very different than unreliable. On an annual basis the wind is a lot more reliable than even hydro, which faces a lot more uncertainty about water (increasingly so) and has a lot more claims on the use of that water. One of the arguments for building lots of wind turbines in lots of places is the truism that the wind's always blowing someplace -- if not here, then there. And, because wind is small-scale generation, it's more reliable than any thermal plant. Any serious defect in a coal or nuke plant takes them 100% out of commission. A defect in a 3 MW turbine that's part of a 900 MW array means you lose 1/300th of the output.