Wind is shifting
Wind industry officials are so adept at deflecting criticism it's no wonder people who raise red flags about where and how wind should be harnessed are easily dismissed by the general public and incurious politicians. Bent on erecting turbines in anyone's back yard if there's a buck to be made, underlying issues and concerns are swept quickly away by well-oiled public relations machines. Those who question the industry's motives or statistics are characterized as NIMBYists who care not about the greater energy needs of the U.S. but only about their own front porch vistas.
Over the course of the almost four years of debate on the issue in Highland, we've watched the industry drag out the same arguments again and again: It's better than coal and gas, it can power so many thousands of homes, it doesn't scar the landscape, pollute the air, or require mining. And wind turbines don't kill as many birds as cats.
Industry officials are like children who, when confronted about their actions, turn your attention to how good they are compared to their poorly behaved siblings. They point to the damage other energy sources have wreaked upon the environment. They do this so effectively that for many years, no one argued.
Time to grow up.
Those who oppose wind energy projects may not always have the resources to be savvy in this debate, but their very real concerns cannot be discounted. This particular form of generating power carries its own set of problems that require particular solutions. Turbines may not pollute the air or water; they may not be as "bad" as fossil fuels, but simply saying wind energy is "green" and renewable, in hopes of not having to address its weaknesses, is unacceptable.
Problem is, those who question the viability of wind energy are not sophisticated, politically motivated officials backed by big wallets. In general, the "opposition" has consisted of ordinary people living near current or proposed wind facilities, and scientists at the ground level who noticed little research was being done before or after 450-foot monstrosities were built. But grassroots efforts are getting more organized, and they are starting to be heard.
The General Accountability Office's report released this month is significant - not because of its conclusions, which most opponents had come to long ago, but because it's tangible evidence government officials are no longer dismissing out of hand the voices of people who have been brushed off by the wind lobby whose consistent message about being "green" has, to date, drowned them out. The GAO report offers nothing new - it concluded that solid, objective assessments on projects are needed. But for those who have felt like they were spitting in the wind every time they questioned a developer's plan, this adds a measure of validity that's been, up to now, terribly hard to come by.
Here in the rural Alleghenies, and other less populated Appalachian counties, wind energy development may or may not be welcomed by residents and county seat governments. If folks in Tucker County, W.Va. like what they see and benefit from the Backbone Mountain project in their midst, fine. But let's not compare Tucker County to Highland and Bath, or Pendleton, or Garratt County, Md. As the American Wind Energy Association noted in this week's Recorder, there are lots of places where turbines make sense - mountain tops already decimated by other industries, or sprawling soybean fields in the Midwest. Tucker's project stands in an area already developed for industrial use - an environmentally broken place in which the turbines are the least of its concerns.
Localities that have not yet allowed such development have every right to resist industrial use of any kind, especially as more and more of their neighbors succumb to the promise of money and jobs at any cost. There aren't many wind energy opponents in Highland who say turbines have no place in America. What they are saying is that the fragile, old mountains here constitute the worth of Highland, and are worth leaving alone.
Wind industry proponents need not take their opposition personally. Yes, call them NIMBYs. If their back yards looked like Highland County, they'd be NIMBYs, too.
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