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| The American Wind Energy Association reports that 2007 will be a record year for generating power in this alternative way. |
By Scott Harper
The Virginian-Pilot
MONTEREY
There is no industry here in Highland County, a scenic outpost that local boosters call “Virginia’s Switzerland.” Just farming, timbering, some tourism and the mountains.
And, of course, the wind.
Lots of wind.
Out here in the Allegheny Mountains, snug to the West Virginia line, the first commercial wind farm in Virginia is planned. As many as 22 turbines, each as tall as the Statue of Liberty, would churn out enough clean energy to power more than 12,000 homes a year, according to plans.
If approved by regulators, it would be the highest wind development on the East Coast, atop two mountain ridges more than 4,200 feet in elevation.
The $65 million green-energy project has become the biggest, most controversial issue to hit the county’s 2,500 residents in a generation, with petition drives, marathon public hearings and an organized opposition.
The ferocity of local opinions against the project has raised questions about Virginia’s future as a wind-energy producer, with surrounding counties unsure about opening their mountaintops to investors, too.
The debate also comes as entrepreneurs in other states are rushing to erect turbines, take advantage of federal tax credits and create electricity without the emissions linked to global warming.
The American Wind Energy Association reports that 2007 will be a record year for generating power this alternative way, eclipsing the previous one-year record, set in 2006. Projects have been completed so far this year in Texas, Illinois, Colorado, Iowa, New York and Minnesota.
Thirty-three states had at least one wind farm operating at the beginning of 2007, according to industry statistics – but almost none in the South.
“If not here, then where?” asked John Flora, an attorney for Highland New Wind Development LLC, the start up company behind the Virginia proposal.
“This is the best place to put one,” Flora said, “yet we’ve been challenged and sued at every turn.” Project opponents say they are not against wind energy in general, just not at this location.
 "Given the condition of the world, with our reliance on fossil fuels and with global warming becoming a big issue, I thought people would see this as a good project and support it," said property owner Henry T. "Mac" McBride Jr. "I sure was wrong about that."Delores Johnson photos | The Virginian-Pilot |
Mostly, they fear the loss of their bucolic splendor and lament what they foresee as
ruined mountain scenery and the end of a last-frontier ethic.
“Once you allow this in, I’m scared to death you’re going to see the rapid industrialization of this county and the rest of our pristine mountains,” said Patti Reum, who runs a wilderness retreat outside Monterey, the county seat.
“People come here to get away from it all,” said her husband, Tom Brody. “You put turbines up here and we won’t have that anymore. It’s over. Gone.”
A similar battle cry, of lost natural beauty, has driven a higher-profile fight in Massachusetts, where 140 turbines are planned in Nantucket Sound near million-dollar vacation homes.
Off Virginia’s Eastern Shore, a smaller ocean-wind farm was proposed in 2002. While not rejected outright by local residents, it ran into problems with the Navy, bird enthusiasts, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service before quietly dying two years later.
Highland residents also are not happy with how county officials handled – and approved – local permits for the project, expected to cover about 200 acres of private property. The head of the main opposition group, Randy Richardson, is running for a seat on the local Board of Supervisors and hopes to reverse those earlier decisions – or at least stop more wind proposals that he and others believe will soon be coming.
Richardson, who also sells real estate in the area, said inquiries about properties have slowed in the wake of the wind debate – a fact that has led the local Chamber of Commerce to speak against the project as well.
Opponents also worry about rare bats and migrating birds – including bald eagles and golden eagles – being frappeed by giant whirling blades. The endangered Northern flying squirrel and many caves that lie beneath the rocky landscape might be harmed as well, they argue.
The man behind the project is Henry T. “Mac” McBride Jr., a retired turkey farmer. At 80, he lives outside the county, in Harrisonburg.
Since 1958, he has owned the two mountains where the turbines would be set, and he keeps a ranch home at the foot of one, Red Oak Knob. He met his wife up here and says one of his primary goals is to make enough money to keep the 4,000 acres he owns in Highland County in the hands of his children.
During a recent tour of his ridgeline properties, McBride said he has lost longtime friends over the dispute and even received a death threat.
“Given the condition of the world, with our reliance on fossil fuels and with global warming becoming a big issue, I thought people would see this as a good project and support it,” McBride said. “I sure was wrong about that.”
So far, McBride said he and his family have spent nearly
$2 million in pursuit of government permits to build the 400-foot-tall towers. The money has gone to lawyers, scientific consultants, surveyors and engineers, among others.
The county Board of Supervisors approved the project with a conditional-use permit in July 2005 , by a 2-1 vote, which left some in the audience weeping.
The decision, coming a year after McBride applied for county approval, was immediately challenged in court. It was upheld there, then appealed to the Virginia Supreme Court. On Friday, the court ruled in favor of McBride.
Board Supervisor Don “Robin” Sullenberger cast the lone “no” vote. Interestingly, it was Sullenberger who, as CEO of the Shenandoah Valley Partnership, an economic development group, introduced McBride to the appropriate county officials.
In an interview, Sullenberger said he was mostly worried about size and precedent.
He noted how, during a fact-finding trip to Germany, windmills there were smaller and dedicated to producing energy for local or regional use – not like the behemoths proposed in tiny Highland County, which would feed electricity into a giant grid serving multiple states.
 "Once you allow this in, I’m scared to death you’re going to see the rapid industrialization of this county and the rest of our pristine mountains." said Patti Reum, a resident of Highland County. |
According to international records from 2004, Germany was the largest producer of wind-generated electricity in the world, followed by Spain and then the United States.
Sullenberger also said he was uncomfortable with a lack of guidance from state or federal agencies on how to adequately assess all the permitting factors. “All of this is so new, there weren’t really any guidelines for us to follow,” he said. “I didn’t like us playing the role of guinea pig.”
Board Supervisor Jerry A. Rexrode said he reached his decision to vote “yes” about three hours before the 2005 meeting.
“This will be good for this community,” Rexrode said, nothing that the wind farm would become the largest taxpayer in the county, contributing about $200,000 a year. The county’s annual budget is about $6 million.
Rexrode also thought opponents were missing a bigger picture.
“We know we need green energy,” he said, “but everywhere we propose putting up green energy, it’s 'Not in my backyard.’ If that’s the attitude, we’ll never get out of the mess we’re in.”
The State Corporation Commission also must approve the project as a new electric utility.
After several public meetings, including one in Monterey that lasted from 6 p.m. until 3 a.m., a hearing examiner recommended preliminary approval, though many details still must be ironed out. Those include post-construction monitoring requirements of killed birds and bats.
Scientists seem split on the project as well, their conflicting opinions apparent during th e commission meetings.
Rick Webb, a University of Virginia scientist and Highland County resident, testified that the project presents “a risk of unacceptable environmental harm and … that the potential benefits of the project are minimal.”
Webb also was a member of National Academies of Science panel that studied wind generation in the United States. The panel issued its report in May , concluding that wind-energy capacity has more than quadrupled from 2000 to 2006 but lacks sufficient guidelines and regulation.
Jonathan Miles, a James Madison University professor and wind researcher, supported the project. It will “solidify the message that Virginia can indeed lead the way toward energy independence and a broader, cleaner, more secure and more cost-effective energy portfolio,” Miles testified.
The closest commercial windmill to Virginia is about 90 minutes from Highland County, in West Virginia.
County officials visited the turbines, as did opponents.
Not surprisingly, they came away with vastly different opinions.
“I thought they were fascinating,” County Administrator Roberta Lambert said. “There was no noise and no evidence that they were hurting business or tourism. Personally, I kind of liked them.”
“They made me sick,” said Patti Reum, who runs the wilderness retreat in Highland County. “They ruined those beautiful mountains. And for what? A drop of electricity that probably will be used in New Jersey as a renewable-energy credit.”
Standing atop one of his ridges, McBride said he has seen the West Virginia turbines, too. He has heard negative reactions to them, including the criticism from Reum, who lives about two miles from his ranch home.
But someone has to go first if change is ever to come, he said.
“If you don’t start, you’ll never even get a drop in the bucket,” McBride said. “And, of course, you’ll never be able to fill the bucket.”
Scott Harper, (757) 446-2340,
scott.harper@pilotonline.com
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I live not too far from this...
and I'm all for it. I'd much rather have a wind farm providing some of the power here than another coal-fired power plant. I think the negatives of having them in the viewshed and perhaps the deaths of a few birds or bats (which is debatable depending on who you talk to), is far better than having open-pit strip mines and coal waste sites, underground mining shaft collapses and miners getting killed, mercury and other toxins being pumped into the air and water, and all the other nastiness surrounding that method of power generation. It stinks when the folks who oppose the use of fossil fuels also oppose clean energy projects like this one, simply because it's near them. It's all NIMBY crap. Get real folks, we've got to make a change!
To be against this is nonsense...
Don't fall for the hype about supposed problems with these turbines. I lived in Europe for 12 years, close to several of the wind farms and they caused no problems for the locals, farmers or the birds. They provided an excellent source of energy.
Initially these were not cost effective due to the technology, but since it has matured, they have become a very cost effective solution to produce electricity. I do admit when you first see the size of them, they take a while to get used to, but they also were a huge tourist draw (especially along the southeast coast of Spain). Locals need to start planning the souvenier shops now!
turbulence over turbines at virginia's first planned wind farm
Henry would be just as will off to have invested his money at 6% if each turbine pays $5,000.
Wind farm owners are in it for the money and nothing more.Better check to see who owner is.Most likely from Spain.
In our area,wind farms have changed ownership 3 and 4 times before the first turbine is built.The company that sets a farm up will probably sell it to a bigger foreign company as
Iberdrola or Energeia.
This farm will maybe provide enough energy for
8,000 homes at 30% of rated capacity.
The only people that come out ahead are the landowners and owner companies.
PTC are your federal tax dollars going overseas.
These are a few thoughts from a central Illinois area that is in the middle of the same
conflicts.
American Wind Power is part of the Answer
Wind is the fastest growing electric power source in the world since 2000. If America was to harness just the harness able wind power of N. Dakota we could power 1/3 of America electric power needs. The Great Plains States of America are considered the Saudi Arabia of Wind Power. Solar & Wind energy creates 2.5 good paying America jobs in comparison to conventional power sources. America is the land of Ingenuity if we had spent the $500,000,000 (and counting & no end in sight) occupying Iraq on American Wind, Solar, and Hydrogen. Embracing energy technologies of the 21st century, raising the CAFE standards for cars & light trucks to 40+mpg and raising the bar on buildings and equipment / appliances energy standards America could today be an energy technology expoter (American jobs). The above-mentioned energies have no waste by-product with a 10,000-year radioactive life. We should all embrace nuclear energy so long as it is 93,000,000 miles away. Conservation was the #1 source
Birds have eyes too...
I think the comment about birds hitting windmills are pretty silly - they avoid me while I'm driving (55 of course). Seriously though - I don't think the answer is any one particular source of power, and we will never by completely free of oil, at least not in our lifetimes. But using a combination of wind, solar and yes, nuclear power; we sure can deminish our need of oil (what is the MPG of your supersized SUV?). I'm a supporter of alternative energy - especially passive systems like wind and solar; and I'd like to see their use expanded. I'd like to see our representatives create incentives for homeowners to "go green" like other states and I wish my HOA would allow small wind turbines, I'd have one in no time.
Say no to wind turbines......
Anything with a 200' diameter blade that turns at 30 to 40 RPM has got to be bad. Imagine if the propellor came off. It could travel for miles, chopping everything in it's path to shreds, killing thousands. And what if terrorists were to get their hands on one? These wind turbine things are just a disaster waiting to happen and too little is known about the adverse long-term health effects that living near a giant rotating device may cause. Surely they produce some kind of electromagnetic something, or something. I think we should produce energy with something safe that we know more about....nuclear power.
Terrorists
Terrorists could take over the windmills, feed the generators electric power hijacked from nuclear plants, and turn the windmills in huge fans. This could in effect cause the earth to stop rotating, then reverse. If you fail to understand the seriousness of this issue, please refer to the early Superman movies.
NIMBY
I sometimes believe that nothing can be built anywhere at any time for any reason. Whether it is a group seeking to preserve "historical" buildings in order to stop a new hotel being built or the (very few) residents of Highland County trying to save their "bucolic splendor" the minority will always seek to stop progress. To the other posters I say, you haven't seen opposition until Dominion Resources tries to build a new reactor. Green power is fiction but nobody in a leadership position will go on record saying so.
Go for the Wind
I have been in the Scandanavian countries where wind power is quite readily used. I have also seen the use of wind power in Eastern Europe. It works! It's free! I thought all of the environmentalists out there would love something that doesn't destroy the environment! Go for it!
A giant fan - new wonder of the world
I love how we don't have any problem with the 10s of aircraft carriers with nuclear generators sitting in all of our oceans running perfectly. But we scream and cry at the thought of building another nuclear plant on US soil. Yea, wind power...that will teach those Arab countries! Keep your head in the sand, libs!
Not In My Backyard
The Not In My Backyard syndrom at it's best yet again. Wind is not the total answer to all of our energy concerns, but it is certainly a part. People complain the turbines ruin the scenery. How about we build a smoke and carbon spewing coal power plant up there? Is that better? I think not. I have no problem sitting at the beach and watching offshore turbines. I went through Altamont Pass in CA last year which, I believe, is one of the largest wind projects in the US. Since it is an old project, the evolution of turbines was evident, bigger and bigger is the trend. Fewer larger turbines which turn slower because of their size use less land and are less dangerous to airborne critters. Come on folks, wake up. We've got to do something!
Wind power, the cause of weather changes?
That's the new environmentalist question. More interruption of a natural process. Wind currents affect the weather everywhere on the planet. If you think it has no impact on the weather then mount the generators where the most electrical power is consumed. Major metropolitan areas. Hang a few from the Sears Tower, Empire State Building, etc. Or you could cover the sides of these building with Solar Panels. Solar panels are passive devices which require little maintenance and are not a hazard to flying birds. They would absorb the Sun rays that are warming the planets in our solar system. Just a thought. I'm open to flames.
Bizarro Environmentalists
The plan will pull enough electricity out of thin air to power 12000 homes, and will do it without wasting any resources or dumping any poisons into the atmosphere, and some so-called environmentalists want to stop it. And why, because birds and bats might fly into it? If the birds and bats were that dumb, they would already be extinct from crashing into mountains and trees. The wind farm is a great idea, and the people trying to stop it deserve to breathe all that poison exhaust that our current system is producing.
Why not off shore?
Off shore, preferably beyond sight lines, would be a better place for those windmills. Windmills, alcohol distilleries, etc. are "pie in the sky" schemes for energy sources in the foreseeable future. We cannot blow or distill our way out of fossil fuel dependence. We must recognize the fact that we will be dependent upon fossil fuels at least for the next half century. Therefore, it makes better sense to exploit our offshore resources and build more refinery capacity.
Lets go nukes
i have not heard a peep about nuclear energy.
it is by far the greenest, cleanest, meanest power solution, but the mulahs on the left are too busy praying to the trees and weeds to listen
People are so silly
We want things, We need things, just not in my neighborhood. They complain about using foreign oil, they complain of global warming and green house omissions but it's not going to be in my neighborhood. Don't drill for oil there you're kill of the rare pink spotted blood worm or you're run the moose and polar bear. People are so silly that we must laugh at them and feel sorry for them at the same time.
I've seen them in almost every state.....
as I have been traveling across the country and never fail to find them majestic and beautiful. They are just as much a wonder as any of the works of man.
Nuclear is the real answer
Everytime I hear a speech about sources of energy from a politician or enviornmrntalist, even the far left, they always bring up wind power. But like in Mass and Vermont, talking about it and doing is 2 different things. Yes wind power requires construction of hugh blades in areas where...well there is wind. Like an open seascape or mountain top. If you don't deploy here then I don't want to hear about "wind power" in upcoming speeches, books, etc. Let's go where we should on energy, like the other developed countries-Nuclear power plants
Virginia's Wind Energy
Wake up, Virginia's decision makers! You allow northeast states give us their garbage and are about to give them our wind energy. This is not about the clean energy generated. It's all about the dollars generated. The 2M spent by the developer to force a project that so many oppose would go a long way towards paying future real estate taxes on the 4000 acres.
Good Idea!
Wind will never be a main source of power but it can help us extend our resources. I have seen these farm in Europe & they do a good job. However, we still need to build nuclear power plants which is a much better option than burning oil or coal. 1 ounce of uranium stores as much energy as a car load of coal......