Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
"˜Til it's gone
Converse County soon may learn exactly what singer/songwriter Joni Mitchell meant when she penned these words 40 years ago.
If nothing is done, within a few months or a year heavy equipment will begin widening and straightening Mormon Canyon Road. Eighteen-wheelers will climb the slope into the mountains carrying wind turbine shafts, nacelles and blades (likely manufactured in China, and subsidized 30% by federal money borrowed our behalf largely from the same country). Excavation will start, leading to pouring thousands of tons of concrete for dozens of industrial-scale wind turbines hundreds of feet high. Transmission lines will run down the mountain and across the flats to a substation near the Dave Johnson power plant.
Much of this will take place on land managed by the Office of State Lands and Investments, supposedly as a public trust. The rest will be on private land, where a handful of our fellow citizens hope soon to be cashing royalty checks for 4% or so of the value of the energy generated by this facility, while trashing the property rights of their neighbors. There will be jobs, to be sure: after the initial construction, maybe eight or nine, paying $15-20 per hour. Property tax will decline as equipment depreciates and, of course, there's no state income tax on the royalty income or any wind-company profits generated. What happens to the elk and all the other wildlife in the mountains is anybody's guess. The American Wind Energy Association - no surprise! - tells us that animals thrive under the turbines.
If nothing is done, the Boxelder-Mormon Canyon facility likely will be only the first of these developments in the mountains. The Utah firm promoting wind development in the Northern Laramie Range signaled early last year that its ambitions cover all of the high country into Downey Park and beyond, and it describes its current plans as "Phase 1" of its proposed development. So the prospect is for the high country in Converse and northern Albany to be covered with industrial-scale wind energy facilities.
Converse County citizens face a choice: Do we want to be an "eco-friendly" version of West Virginia – in short, an impoverished, "green energy" sacrifice zone? Or do
we want to preserve the mountain country that contributes so much to our quality of life, and that can be one of the prime attractions for a more diverse array of higher-paying, higher-value-added businesses and jobs? President Obama's energy secretary, Steven Chu, thinks we should be a sacrifice zone. Wasatch Wind, Inc., and some of our neighbors apparently agree with him.
Converse County has hired Clarion Associates to help find an answer. The risk is that by the time Clarion makes its recommendations the mountains in the Boxelder-Mormon Canyon area will be industrialized regardless of the outcome of Clarion's work. One would think that professionals with Clarion's credentials would suggest to the County Commissioners that they declare a moratorium on this development until Clarion's work is done, but there is no sign that this has happened. Everyone who cares about the future of Converse County should join the 700+ petitioners who have asked the County Commissioners to adopt a moratorium on this development until there's been a thorough airing of the issues.
Citizens also should tell Clarion and the County, in no uncertain terms, that the Converse County mountains shouldn't be sacrificed to the royalty-check ambitions of a handful of landowners and their government-subsidized wind-energy paymasters. Converse County has plenty of wind-friendly landscape on the high plains. The County should encourage wind development there, and keep it out of the mountains.
Bret Frye
Kenneth Lay
Lisa Mangus
Willard McMillan
Sharon Rodeman
Sally Sarvey
Steve Sibrel
Kevin Stowe
Tom Swanson
Diemer True
A PDF copy of this editorial is available from http://www.nlralliance.org/downloads/db_editorial_3-2010.pdf