The propagation of lower hybrid waves in the presence of large amplitude drift wave fluctuations has been investigated in a 1=2 stellarator (B<or=0.3 T, ne<or=5.1017 m-3, delta ne/ne<or=0.6). Severe decorrelation of the wave as well as considerable broadening of the perpendicular wavenumber spectrum with a nearly isotropic distribution is found. Strong damping of the LH-wave is observed, which cannot be attributed to collisions or electron Landau damping. High power LH-waves are shown to heat the electrons efficiently. The energy transfer from the turbulent LH-spectrum to the electrons is accounted for by an effective collision frequency nu eeff(kperpendicular to )=Dtperpendicular to kperpendicular to 2. An electron energy balance demonstrates that turbulent heating is by far dominant. Reasonable agreement between the observed heating and the power transfer from the turbulent spectrum is obtained if Dtperpendicular to is estimated from the properties of the drift wave spectra.