County says tower encroachment on WV line not an issue

MONTEREY — Highland County officials couldn't answer a question about setbacks and the Highland New Wind Development wind turbine site plan posed by Recorder publisher Anne Adams at the board of supervisors meeting Tuesday. At one point, county attorney Melissa Dowd took issue with the fact that Adams would even ask a question at the meet- ing.

Adams was trying to find out whether any waiver from the setback had been acquired from the state by HNWD.

She explained later, "I had a conversation with (Highland resident) Dan Foster, who has been deeply concerned about how the project's towers might affect Camp Allegheny, a protected Civil War battlefield. We debated about the setback requirement in the conditional use permit. It requires HNWD to put the towers 1,600 feet away from all property lines, unless an adjoining property owner grants a waiver for them to be closer."

The question, she said, was that if the states of Virginia and West Virginia own U.S. 250, doesn't that mean HNWD would need a waiver from the states to put towers closer than 1,600 feet to that road? She said she had tried most of the day to find out, but had gotten no reply from Dowd or other county officials.

In the meeting, with permission of the board, Adams asked Virginia Department of Transportation residency administrator Tim Fitzgerald who owned U.S. 250. He said VDOT owned U.S. 250.

Dowd corroborated that statement, adding, "VDOT probably owns it west of Monterey."

"We own various right of ways on U.S. 250, depending on where you are at," said Fitzgerald. "We have a fee right of way on primary roads … It's going to vary depending on where you are at, from 80 feet to 100 feet to 60 feet."

"You have to look at it on a case by case basis," supervisor Robin Sullenberger added.

"There's no question that VDOT owns the fee from Monterey to the West Virginia border," said Dowd.

At the end of the meeting, Sullenberger opened the floor to public comments. "I have a question about the Highland New Wind Development site review approval," Adams said. "Since the conditional use permit stated a 1,600-foot setback applied to U.S. 250 — you heard Tim Fitzgerald say that VDOT owned U.S. 250 — I don't recall any discussion of that, or that they (HNWD) applied for an easement from the state of Virginia."

"I don't have any comment," said Sullenberger. "I don't know."

"Let the professionals handle it," said supervisor Jerry Rexrode.

Tuesday, Sullenberger said county officials had clarified the setback question the next morning. He said the county spoke to HNWD attorney John Flora, who explained both of the two turbines in question were within the required setback from U.S. 250 on the Virginia side.

One turbine on Tamarack is not 1,600 feet away from U.S. 250, but at that spot, the road is in West Virginia. "So that's not an issue for us," Sullenberger said. "I don't know about how West Virginia does things, but they were contacted early on in this process and they did not choose to get actively engaged … We don't deal with property on the other side of the state line and we have no indication they are concerned."