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See below for background information on Stewards opposition to wind power projects in the Potomac Highlands of West Virginia.

January 2008: Wind Turbines - Too Many, Too Big, Wrong Places

Imagine a single wind turbine over 400 feet tall on a 3,800 foot mountain top -- a curiosity, perhaps a point of interest for tourists. Now add hundreds of them, up one ridge and down the next. Then add acres of tree clearings and roads to build them -- many in wild areas of the Potomac Highlands. Now you have an eyesore and environmental plague. Plus an excuse, now that the mountains are scarred, for more industrial invasions. This is not imaginary, but is actually happening. This is why landowners and residents throughout West Virginia are coming together to save our mountains and challenge the proliferation of wind "farms" in West Virginia.

Must the Potomac Highlands be sacrificed for this green energy scam? Why aren’t alternatives to these monstrosities being implemented? Small turbines could be installed on roof tops right in the cities where power is needed. (A type of windmill called a vertical axis wind turbine doesn't kill birds, bats, or views! More information is available at WikiPedia.org/wiki/Wind_turbine.)

Greenbrier County conservationists are challenging Beech Ridge Energy LLC / Chicago-based Invenergy LLC over a $300 million, 124-turbine project in western Greenbrier County. Residents are awaiting a WV Supreme Court ruling on their appeal of the PSC approval decision.

Friends of Beautiful Pendleton County successfully intervened at the Public Service Commission against US Wind Force’s Liberty Gap project in Pendleton County. The developer proposed 50 turbines on Jack Mountain, running from the state line north for approximately 6 miles in the county.

The Laurel Mountain Preservation Association is challenging the romantic green image of wind power. AES, a $14 billion power company from Virginia, wants to build up to 80 windmills on Laurel Mountain, crossing both Randolph and Barbour counties.

Landowners in Grant County, represented by former WV Supreme Court Chief Justice Richard Neely, filed a nuisance law suit against NedPower/Shell Wind Energy/Dominion protesting property devaluation, noise and hazardous effects of the giant spinning blades. Phase I turbines of the huge Grant County project are now visible for 40 miles. Sadly, our mountains--our backyards, our wilderness areas, wildlife, and wildlife habitats are being sacrificed by large companies not just to grab coal, but now in the name of "green energy." The road building and clearing of forests will pollute watersheds and destroy highland wetlands.

Federal tax benefits pay as much as 65% of the cost of building huge windmill "plants" in the U.S. Huge energy companies use these well-intentioned renewable-energy tax breaks to cut costs and continue to generate most of their power with fossil fuel. The huge windmills also require a reserve of power to operate -- in other words, they have to take electricity from the power grid in order to generate power.

The unfortunate truth is: Big Wind is mostly hot air. Help us save your mountain top today! Send donations to Stewards of the Potomac Highlands, and don’t forget to ask questions of your county commissioners, state legislators and Congress members.

January 2007: Wind Turbulence
 - Big Energy Blowhards Batter Birds, Bats, and Blustery Citizens

Landowners on and near the Allegheny Front in Grant, Pendleton, and Greenbrier Counties possess some of the most beautiful, sensitive, historical and scenic spots in the East. Many inherited a love of the land from their grandparents and great-grandparents. Others recently invested in their dream homes in the wilds of West Virginia, only to find their dreams interrupted by the unnerving rush of wind turbine blades from 400 foot high, unsightly industrial towers on the spine of the Allegheny. Fueled by another year’s extension of federal tax breaks and high prevailing wind patterns around mountaintops along the eastern continental divide, the wind companies plan hundreds of turbines. Dozens of these 400 foot towers have already been erected in Grant and Tucker Counties. Mountains are damaged in the construction of the huge tower bases. Whirling blades have been killing thousands of birds and bats.

Since the wind turbines are labeled renewable "green" energy, some environmentalists support them without knowing all the pros and cons. In 2004, the wind industry said it provided nearly 17 billion kilowatt hours, enough to serve some 1.6 million households. This is less than 1% of the country's electricity production. Analysts said future expansion of the industry depends on more tax breaks.

Among environmental groups, supporters and opponents of the turbines agree there should be regulations on where the towers can be sited. Local county commissioners are always courted by the companies and often fail to ask tough questions—but more recently, the U.S. Department of Interior did act to protect the Sinnett Thorne Mountain Cave System in Pendleton County. And federal representatives, including Congressmen Alan Mollohan and Nick Rahall, have expressed concern. Please encourage Rep. Mollohan’s efforts; call his office at 202-225-4172.

Local groups continue defending their beloved mountains against the onslaught of the giant windmills. Check out their efforts and see pictures of the turbines and their destruction at ResponsibleWind.org.

Because there are no siting regulations, landowners and neighbors are protesting the wind companies' utility permits at the Public Service Commission. They're also filing lawsuits charging that the turbines' damage to scenery, land and wildlife constitutes a public nuisance. Earlier this month, Citizens for Responsible Windpower went before the PSC and charged that NedPower Shell Wind Energy has changed the scope of the project by placing turbines less than 400 feet from homes and in bald eagle habitat north of Dolly Sods. In addition landowners in Grant County, represented by former WV Supreme Court Justice Richard Neely, filed a suit against NedPower. The Supreme Court voted to hear arguments in spring 2007, but NedPower ignored the Court decision and began construction.

A PSC hearing scheduled for December 12th about the Liberty Gap wind project was postponed until April 16th. Eve Firor of Friends of Beautiful Pendleton County, opposing the Jack Mountain turbines, reported that the group agreed to a continuance rather than ask the company to resubmit its application. Liberty Gap did not reveal that while they applied for a siting permit for up to 50 wind turbines on Jack Mountain, their request to Allegheny Power to intertie at the North Franklin Substation was to connect 112 turbines, meaning they have plans to extend the wind farm into Highland County, Virginia.

Eve said that Friends was told of the canceled December 12th hearing only the day before, after many members were already on their way to Charleston. This is one of the many nightmares that put citizens at a disadvantage.

Small companies that first propose wind projects are usually bought out by big corporations, such as NedPower, acquired by Shell, which is now selling part of its stake to Dominion. As with the coal industry, the new companies often insist they don’t have to follow agreements that the former companies made with landowners and citizens. Landowners and tourists who love the scenery are worried that, like the West Virginia coalfields, the Allegheny Front could become a national energy sacrifice zone.

Large wind companies have mounted a massive public relations campaign that vastly overstates the benefits of industrial wind power. They have managed to persuade some state legislatures to mandate its use, thereby creating an artificial market for its product.

Stewards believe we should not follow like sheep, but ask serious questions. Questions such as:

• Who said wind power has to consist of enormous, intrusive towers?
• Who is working to encourage small scale wind power to be more effective?
• Why are environmentalists not concentrating more on this potential for appropriate small-scale technology?
• Companies such as Turby are now marketing nine-foot windmills that can be placed atop buildings in windy cities. Development for appropriate small-scale home windmills is being slowed by the sale of inadequate equipment, according to the British newspaper The Guardian.
• These wind turbine projects are another overbuilt monster invading our Potomac Highlands, like Corridor H and the proposed 10-lane I-81. Someone must stand and ask questions.

Studying Birds and Windmills

Citing inadequate bird impact studies by wind farm developers along the Allegheny Front, Friends of the Allegheny Front (FOAF; www.friendsofthealleghenyfront.org) announced plans to hire an expert from Cornell University to carry out a thorough nocturnal bird migration study beginning in Spring, 2004. The study will verify the relative numbers, species, and dynamics of spring bird migration along the ridgeline. The Front is one of the major routes for bird migration in eastern North America.

FOAF also asked the WV Public Service Commission for a moratorium on the NedPower project pending one complete year of monitoring studies. Evidence continues to grow that wind farms pose serious danger for birds, bats, and other wildlife. Studies released in October from the new Backbone Mountain wind project in Tucker County, owned by Florida Power and Light, reported over 400 bats killed. This is the largest bat kill in the world at a wind turbine facility, and it is conceivable that 100,000 more may be killed annually at this site. Mutilated bats had broken forearms, broken wings, and severed heads. This is intolerable considering many of these species only produce one young a year. The endangered Virginia big-eared bat is known to use a cave that is approximately 3 2 miles from the proposed Allegheny Front windmills.

In response to the deluge of wind power facilities planned or under construction in the tri-state area, FOAF is forming a coalition with groups in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. A citizens group, Friends of the Appalachian Highlands, in Meyersdale, PA, recently issued a letter announcing a possible lawsuit against a planned wind power project on a 2-mile long swath of ridgetop near Meyersdale. The letter, which is a prerequisite for legal action under the Endangered Species Act, states that the erection of turbines and operation of the facility pose an immediate threat to an endangered species, the Indiana bat.

Tilting At Windmills

Stewards oppose 200 enormous steel windmills on the tops of 14 miles of mountains from North of Dolly Sods to East of Mount Storm Lake.

It makes no sense to save mountaintops and then cover them with whirling steel.

The windmills would reach over 400 feet above ground - visible for miles - and would be lit at night for the safety of airplanes. The blades turn at up to 200 miles per hour. They actually produce very little power, and coal-based power plants are still needed as backup when the wind is too weak or too strong to run the windmills. It would take 3,000 windmills to match the power of just one coal fired plant like the one at Mt Storm, and we would still need the fossil-fueled plant as backup.

The Campaign to Preserve Malpeque, a citizen's group against the construction of windmills in their tranquil community on Price Edward Island, Canada, has an infomative web page: The Problems with Wind Turbine Industrial Complexes. Closer to home, Glenn R. Schleede, Energy Market & Policy Analysis, in Reston, Virginia has provided his analysis Evaluating the Costs and Benefits of Wind Energy: Overstated Benefits and Understated Costs Creates False Hopes for Wind Power [138KB pdf file]

"Wind power will be part of our energy future, but we have to be smart about where and how we go about it," says Caroline Kennedy of the national citizens group Defenders of Wildlife. "West Virginia has already paid a high environmental price for this country's energy demands."

This rush to build windmills is made profitable only by temporary tax breaks and the fact that consumers in other more affluent states are willing to pay a premium for what they perceive, and are being told, is "green" energy.

Stewards joined local and national environmental groups in opposing the project. Defenders of Wildlife and Friends of Blackwater filed a notice of intent to sue based on potential harm to the West Virginia northern flying squirrel, the endangered Virginia big-eared bat, and migratory birds. Stewards has donated to the legal battles.

A local group of landowners and farmers, Friends of the Allegheny Front, (Contact: Donna Cook at 304-749-8424) filed a protest with the WV Public Service Commission (PSC) and continue efforts to protect their land and scenic mountain viewshed. They convinced the PSC to block Dutch-owned NedPower's plan to build turbines in the project's southern section, because it was too close to Dolly Sods. However the PSC approved NedPower's 200-turbine facility on top of 14 miles of the Allegheny Front.

Citizens for Responsible Wind Power called for the PSC to halt permits for wind power until the state can develop siting criteria.

West Virginia Highlands Conservancy has debated the pros and cons of wind power on the Allegheny, and decided to oppose one Guascor Group project at Rich Mountain because of severe impacts on recreational views

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