Not Throwing Caution to the Winds

by Viv Stockman

Our nation’s massive energy appetite creates deadly impacts upon our lives and the landscape, our life support system. It is therefore reasonable that local communities and activists have not thrown caution to the wind by unconditionally embracing wind power.

Instead, people have asked many questions and demanded involvement in the placement of wind farms. Will lights on the towers attract insects, and will the bugs attract bats and birds, which could be killed by the rotating windmill blades? How will those huge towers, some taller than a football field is long, with blades spanning more than 100 feet, affect mountain views? Is wilderness still wilderness when you can see wind machines churning on the horizon? Will the wind mills be noisy?

In an ideal world where corrupt politics doesn’t trump science and common sense, we would undertake a nationwide campaign to drastically curb our energy consumption, while proceeding extremely cautiously in building new energy-generating sources.

We would vastly improve all of our energy efficiency and conservation measures.

We would reject as virtually suicidal our nation’s current more, More, MORE energy policy.

For now, most state and national elected "leaders" lack the courage and vision needed to stand up to the fossil fuel cartel. Instead of instituting some sort of Marshall Plan that would help quickly move our country out of the carbon (fossil fuel) era, Congress may yet pass an energy bill that continues massive subsidies for fossil fuels.

Thank goodness individuals and businesses are making their own efforts to establish cleaner energy alternatives now. While hydrogen will certainly be a favored fuel of the future, wind energy is the most advanced alternative happening in West Virginia.

Our still-intact northern mountains are attracting several wind energy companies. Towers are going up now at the Mountaineer Wind Energy Center (MWEC), based in Thomas, Tucker County. The companies running this operation have said they want to be as environmentally friendly as possible. They have responded to activists’ concerns from the beginning. They altered their original tower placement plan so that wind towers would not be visible from Blackwater Falls, a premier tourist attraction.

Of course, wind farms shouldn’t be marring views of major tourist attractions. However, the American Wind Energy Association argues that the wind towers are compelling kinetic sculptures in their own right. Anyone familiar with the views at a mountaintop removal operation would find the windmills far more attractive.

But the views aren’t the only consideration. On Sept. 24, an OVEC staffer visited MWEC as the first of 44 towers were being erected along six miles of Backbone Mountain.

The road for constructing the towers was quite a heavy-handed operation and such roads could certainly disrupt wildlife habitat, though not nearly on the scale of a mountaintop removal operation. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has asked another company wanting to erect 200 towers near the Dolly Sods Wilderness Area to do endangered species surveys.

Modern towers are not mesh, but rather solid steel shells, so birds can’t roost on them. The blades turn at 17 revolutions per minute, much slower than the older blades. Still, with the 115-foot turbine blades MWEC will use, the tips will rotate at about 140 miles per hour. MWEC will monitor their project with an avian study. They also asked the Federal Aviation Administration for leeway to use lighting that is the least attractive to wildlife.

We would never cite a "fact sheet" from the West Virginia or Kentucky Coal Associations as a credible source (for a quick laugh click here) but the American Wind Energy Association’s fact sheet includes the observation, "While no electricity generation is entirely benign, the impacts of some energy sources dwarf others in terms of the harm they cause to wildlife."

By the time the OVEC staffer left Tucker County, five wind tower bottom and mid sections had been erected. From the higher neighborhoods of Thomas, the windmills were very visible, certainly not ugly, but there was still about 100 feet of tower and the turbines to go.

An unscientific survey of shopkeepers in Thomas and Davis found Tucker Countians very supportive of the windmills, even the "new wave" residents, those who had moved to the county for its recreational opportunities.

As one retailer said, "Personally, I think that the argument against them.... polluting the view shed...is shortsighted. Would they rather look at more strip mine sites? More valley fills?"

Certainly, West Virginia needs to proceed cautiously and develop guidelines ensuring careful consideration in the development of wind farms.