Windy reasoning against wind farm

The Virginian-Pilot

THERE ARE CONCLUSIONS to be drawn from the projection that a wind farm in Highland County will churn $4.2 million a year in profits once its start-up costs are satisfied:

It'll take at least a decade to pay down the big initial costs of the 19 turbines, meaning the 80-year-old owner won't be reaping profits for a long while, if at all. To put it in perspective, the farm will cost $60 million to build, so the estimated profit is hardly excessive.

Much of the profit essentially comes from federal guarantees designed to encourage green energy, which this most certainly will be, and which environmentalists generally support.

Except - sadly - in this particular project. The Highland County wind farm has been pilloried by a combination of neighbors and environmentalists as being inappropriate for the Alleghany ridge where it would be built, and where the wind is.

The family of Henry McBride, the agribusinessman who owns the property, said he wants to ensure the future of his 4,000-acre spread, and to do right by the environment. No doubt he'd also like to put some change in the pockets of his descendants, but there's no shame in that.

Unfortunately, though, opponents are pointing at the estimates of $4.2 million in annual profits as if there's something wrong with them. They're using that number as proof that the proponents are too greedy, and that they can afford to spend more on ensuring the safety of wildlife.

"The amount of profit that was forecast was very surprising in light of the fact that the proponents of the project had told the State Corporation Commission that they couldn't afford to do the environmental studies that they were being requested to do by people like The Nature Conservancy," Highland County resident and project opponent Chris Little told The Roanoke Times.

The real story here is that opponents - many of them environmentalists, no doubt - don't want the wind farm in their back yards. They are raising the specter of dead birds and flying squirrels as reason enough to oppose the project. Oh, and the $4.2 million in profits.

If this kind of philosophical switcheroo sounds familiar, it should. It's the same kind of competing allegiances and distractions you hear in the debates about where to put refineries, or ethanol plants, or nuclear reactors, or offshore windmills.

There are real and good reasons to oppose projects like those. It's hard to find similar ones for a field full of windmills. Except for the basic human fact that people don't like change, especially when plans target their neighborhoods and - most importantly - their backyards.