When wind turbines began dotting the skyline around Dale Rankin's horse ranch near Abilene, he teamed up with other property owners to sue the company in charge of the project, FPL Energy. Brandon Wade: For the Chronicle
Posted on 02/05/2007 1:56:56 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
When wind turbines began dotting the skyline around Dale Rankin's horse ranch near Abilene, he teamed up with other property owners to sue the company in charge of the project, FPL Energy. Brandon Wade: For the Chronicle
JACKSBORO — The wind rustling the oak trees on the Squaw Mountain Ranch soon may be its undoing as a starkly empty, unspoiled corner of North Texas.
Riding the boom that last year pushed Texas past California as the nation's leading wind energy producer, a wind power company wants to scatter 100 turbines across an area roughly nine miles long and two miles wide, with at least a dozen of the 250-foot towers on the ranch.
"I'm not interested in having blinking red lights causing the Milky Way not to be as bright or to hear them when now I hear nothing up here except the sounds of nature," said ranch manager Dan Stephenson, explaining why the ranch declined to lease land for the project and objects to its neighbors leasing as well.
"Wind farm, that's a spin term," Stephenson said as he took in a vista of tree-covered ridgelines. "I call them wind turbine industrial zones."
Though embraced by state political leaders as a clean, renewable electricity source and welcomed by many rural landowners as newfound income, wind farms are gathering fresh opposition from Texas ranchers who say they are an ugly, noisy blight on the wide-open landscape.
Opponents say the turbines, which extend up 400 feet to the tips of their blades, not only threaten birds and wildlife but devalue property in areas such as the distant outskirts of Dallas-Fort Worth, where ranchland is increasingly being used for recreation and second homes.
"We're in a 100-yard dash trying to fight these things and, they're already 50 yards ahead," said Stephenson.
Landowners' rights Because Texas does not regulate the siting of wind projects, power companies need only assemble a group of agreeable landowners to set up operations. Royalties paid to ranchers in the Abilene area average about $12,000 per turbine per year, according to testimony in a lawsuit there.
Without governmental oversight, wind farm opponents say, their only recourse has been to head for the courthouse.
In December, five Jack County landowners, including Squaw Mountain Ranch, sued in state court to enjoin several subunits of the Spanish wind giant Gamesa Corp. from erecting "monster wind turbines." It was the third such suit filed in the state, the other ones were in Taylor and Cooke counties.
Jack County Judge Mitchell Davenport characterized opposition to the wind project as "small but vocal" and said he expects most landowners will lease their land for the project if they have not already.
"I see it as very much a property rights issue," said Davenport. "If someone wants to lease for oil or wind or whatever, I think that is up to them."
The judge said economic growth in the county of 8,000 has been "very, very slow," making the wind proposals "one of our best new opportunities."
Stephen Wiley, director of Gamesa Development USA in Austin, said the company plans to invest more than $100 million in the first of three projects it has proposed in Jack County, the Barton Chapel Wind Project.
The company will install 60 turbines capable of producing 120 megawatts, enough to power about 85,000 houses, although the variability of wind cuts actual electrical production to about 30 percent of that capacity.
Development of the wind farm near the Squaw Mountain Ranch has been pushed back to 2009 because of a worldwide shortage of wind turbines, Wiley said.
The company, which is seeking property tax abatements, picked the county because it is near transmission lines and has "an abundance of wind," Wiley said. He said he would have preferred to locate the project in the Panhandle, which state studies rate as having the best potential for wind power. But the location lacks sufficient transmission lines to carry the electricity to more heavily populated areas for use.
State support Gamesa and larger producers in Texas like FPL Energy, which operates 11 wind farms in the state, have been encouraged to build by the Legislature, which in 1999 mandated renewable energy goals. In 2005, lawmakers called for an output of 5,880 megawatts by 2009 — about 3 percent of total demand — from sources such as wind, solar, landfill gas and flowing water.
Last year, wind turbines in Texas accounted for nearly a third of all those installed in the U.S., according to a report released last month by American Wind Energy Association. And the state now hosts the world's largest operating wind farm, the Horse Hollow Wind Energy Center in Nolan and Taylor counties.
"When they put 1,000 of those next to your property, you're not living out in the country anymore," said Dale Rankin, referring to the slim white towers arrayed on the bluffs around his property in Tuscola, about 20 miles south of Abilene.
Rankin, who raises horses on his ranch but makes his living in the chemical business, and eight other property owners sued in 2005 to stop FPL Energy's wind project.
In December, after a two-week trial, they learned just how difficult it will be to stop the wind industry in Texas.
A jury in Abilene found that the turbines were not a nuisance to neighboring landowners after the judge in the case narrowed the legal claims to one: noise pollution.
"We knew we had an uphill battle in a place that calls itself the wind energy capital of the world," said Steve Thompson, a Houston attorney representing the landowners. He plans to appeal the verdict.
Trey Cox, a Dallas attorney representing FPL Energy, said claims of ugliness have little legal support in Texas law. "Texas is very much a landowner's rights state," he said. "We don't want neighbors fussing over what things look like. ... As long as you're not doing anything illegal, if you want to have a broken-down barn or paint your house pink, you get to do it."
He said Texas ranches, including many of those of the plaintiffs, have hosted pump jacks and other energy industry equipment.
Jack Hunt, president of the legendary King Ranch in South Texas, scoffs at comparisons between wind turbines and power lines or pump jacks. "They're not 400 feet tall and moving," he said.
The King Ranch, owned by descendants of Capt. Richard King, has taken issue with a proposal to locate 267 turbines on a neighboring ranch near the coast in Kenedy County. County commissioners last spring denied the project a tax abatement, but it could go forward without one.
"The Kenedy and King ranches go back more than 150 years, and we're at each other's throats over this deal," Hunt said, referring to property owned by the John G. Kenedy Jr. Charitable Trust.
He said the proposed wind farm is likely to have a major impact on the so-called "River of Birds," the flyway from Canada to Mexico that funnels scores of migrating bird species through the area. "You're erecting a 10-mile wall," he said, echoing criticism from environmentalists and birders. "Nobody's looking at how the birds will react to it."
Two offshore wind farms that state officials are proposing to build in the Gulf will receive considerable federal scrutiny for their effect on the birds, marine life and other ecological impacts.
"Onshore, there is no oversight," Hunt said. "Once they start killing birds, and you happen to find out about it, then you can bring in the feds."
Hunt and other critics say the wind power hardly merits the major tax subsidies it receives. Because wind is so variable, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which controls most of the state's power grid, calculates it can rely on only 2.6 percent of wind power capacity being available during peak summer demand periods, council reports show.
"They've been on the cusp of becoming efficient and useful for a quarter-century now, and they never quite get there," Hunt said. "We're destroying so much scenery for so little power."
thomas.korosec@chron.com
All the usual blather about "protecting the environment" and "renewable energy"-- then some spoilsport pointed out that for one-fifth of the money, they could generate the same amount of power with a conventional plant.
And not be subject to the vagarities of the wind...
Don't know what ever became of it- one could hope common sense prevailed, and they spent their money on 5 conventional plants...
No thank you. I'm not going to besmirch an 18th century house with one of these. I can't imagine anyone else looking at it and not thinking it would be an eyesore.
Regards, Ivan
L
I've seen these things from the freeway in Texas. Even with vast, wide open spaces, these things are visually overpowering.
The turbines are so large they show up well on Google Maps.
Regards, Ivan
Here are some more visuals.
I wonder if they would object to a windfarm in ANWR.
My feelings exactly. More backround on the windmill folly (only reason they're getting built is because our tax dollars subsidizing them via stupid laws):
Check out the windmill carnage here (toppled windmills and bird carcasses)
Horrors of wind power
http://www.matsuvalleynews.com/wind1.html
Wind farm 'hits eagle numbers'
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5108666.stm
Wind farm turbine blades are killing a key population of Europe's largest bird of prey, UK wildlife campaigners warn.
Wind turbines taking toll on birds of prey
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-01-04-windmills-usat_x.htm
Group's lawsuit over bird deaths gets green light
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1346697/posts
Nuclear vs. Wind, Part I
http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/2006/03/nuclear-vs-wind-part-i.html
Wind Farms Provide Negligible Useful Electricity - White Paper
http://ff.org/centers/csspp/pdf/20060331_wind.pdf
SUMMARY: wind farms for power generation can only provide negligible electricity to grid supply systems, make no significant reduction in pollution, cause significant environmental damage, increase the costs of electricity and create risks of power failures
Only reason these poodle power devices are being erected is stupid politicians succumbing to greenie pressure and an ill informed electorate. Windmills are feel good devices that will topple in hurricanes, require baseload (fossil and nuclear backups) and visually pollute large sections of beautiful landscape due to their low energy density per sq mile compared to fossil and nuke.
We ought to put a turbine right inside the Senate. There's enough wind there to power all of DC.
L
The color of the paint on the neighbors' house is visually overpowering. We need to force them to change it. I don't like the color of their car, either. Those colors are lowering the value of my place. The color of paint is actually regulated in some HOAs and counties. One HOA that I know of does not allow white or other reflective paint jobs (only nature colors allowed--dark brown, for example).
[Little sarcasm and irony there.]
Are PV panels any prettier? Some people are off of the power grid and in windy places. Others are off of the power grid in sunny places. Some people have much wind and sun. Busybodies who claim to be environmentalists are trying to stop people in places off of the grid from generating their own power. The false enviornmentalist busybodies are doing so for the purpose of devaluing and buying the properties of others cheap to make way for their big developer friends.
If you want to regulate all of the scenery around you, buy property all the way to the horizon, IMO. If you don't own it, don't try to control it.
Royalties paid to ranchers in the Abilene area average about $12,000 per turbine per year, according to testimony in a lawsuit there.
In my current financial position, I’d welcome a dozen of them.
You got that right.
L
Lurker, two cites over to the west of us is Plant McManus- a nuclear power plant.
For the last thirty years, all it's done is produce clean, cheap electricity.
By contrast, the two chemical plants in town kill one or two workers each, every year. Guess which of these I would choose to work at, given a choice?
The "whadda we gonna do with THE NUCLEAR WASTE?" issue is a red herring-- boob-bait intended to distract the easily duped into chattering endlessly about a non-problem... you just recycle the stuff, as many other nations have done for decades.
Jimmy Carter outlawed it here, that's the only reason we aren't doing it now. Yes, stupid Executive Orders, and Laws, seem to live forever.
And I remember that blithering idiot Carter and his stupid order. That's one that Bush should invalidate before he leaves office btw.
The nuke plants around here have a nearly flawless safety record. Not one single citizen has ever been harmed by any of them. Not one.
Some workers have had accidents, but none were radation related. By contrast we lose dozens of workers every year around here just in the construction trades.
Just about a week ago a young man was killed by sand in a concrete pipe factory. That's right. He was killed by sand. It was a tragic death and the business owner hasn't as of yet re-opened his plant because he's so traumatized.
In spite of having at least 3 operating nuke plants around here, (2 are out of service IIRC) Chicago still faces occasional 'brownouts' in the summer.
Now personally I don't care if folks want to put windmills on their property or if they want to sink geothermal vents. As long as the magma doesn't fry my house it's fine with me.
But this whole 'energy crisis' thing would go away, at least as far as electricity is concerned, if we would just build some more damned nuclear plants of modern design.
L
At the quoted royalty rate, those big turbines are objects of supreme beauty (no matter what they look like).
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