Who we are

We are more than 800 members of the community in central Wyoming who care about our agriculture, wildlife, history, landscape and recreation. Our numbers are growing rapidly as more and more citizens wake up to the potential adverse effect chaotic and uncontrolled energy and transmission development may have on our economy, land values and quality of life quality of life.

Why we've Come Together

We’ve formed our alliance because aggressive outside interests are trying to industrialize our pristine mountain country.

A self-described “serial entrepreneur” from Utah, operating as “Wasatch Wind, Inc.,” is has procured property rights from a handful of greedy landowners that could permit construction of hundreds of 400+-foot-high turbines in a wind farm stretching for miles through the heart of the Northern Laramie Mountains.

We oppose this development because it’s wrong for our community and because there are readily available alternatives nearby that can serve as well or better the country’s need for energy generation and transmission. We also believe that this project is part of a chaotic and uncoordinated rush to develop and transmit electricity in and from Wyoming that could irrevocably alter the character of our region and the State.

What We Stand For

Responsible, properly-sited wind development

Industrial-scale wind development is a sustained, long-term intrusion that fundamentally and permanently alters landscapes, habitat and traditional land use. In Wyoming, there are tens of thousands of square miles of high-plains country that can support this development. There are other areas – the Northern Laramie Mountains among them – where industrial-scale wind development should be banned.

The Alliance supports properly-sited industrial-scale wind development on the high plains and away from settled areas and scenic, multiple-use landscapes.

Exercise of the full range of authority at the county level to prevent industrialization of the high country in Converse, Albany and Natrona Counties.

Converse County commissioners currently are considering their response to accelerating wind power development in the area. There are a number of tools available to them to slow this development pending a thorough discussion in the community about whether, where and how citizens want wind development to occur. Most recently, the County has engaged Clarion Associates, a Denver-based land-use consulting firm, to help it make the right decisions. Clarion is surveying public attitudes - no further industrial-scale wind development should proceed until this process is complete.

The Alliance urges the Converse County and Albany County Commissions to establish a moratorium on early-stage wind development south and west of I-25 in the Northern Laramie Range, pending the outcome of Clarion’s work and a full public discussion of wind-development policy in the Counties.

Financial alternatives to help ranchers continue ranching without the need to install industrial-scale wind and transmission infrastructure on their land.

We recognize that ranchers in our area have been great stewards of the land for many generations, much to the benefit of all of us.

The Alliance is working actively with other private and public partners to design financial tools – including, for example, conservation leases – that can offer an alternative to wind development as a source of income for these landowners.

Full disclosure of large-scale development that affects the community at large.

This has not happened in the Northern Laramies so far.

Wasatch Wind leased large landholdings in secret, with the intention of presenting the public with an “accomplished fact” after it signed up key holdings and before the landholders concerned became aware of their neighbors’ strong opposition. Its application for “special use” of state land, for example, came to the attention of existing grazing leaseholders only through the Alliance’s notifying these ag lessees. As a result of the Alliance’s efforts the Office of State Lands and Investments has changed its policy. Citizen voices CAN make a difference!

The Alliance is pushing for these important matters to be fully and publicly disclosed BEFORE key decisions are made.

Strict limits on private parties’ use of the state government’s power of eminent domain.

Current law provides that transmission constructed solely to service new wind farms – which themselves do not have the power of eminent domain – can condemn private property to create transmission facilities to deliver the electricity generated by these wind farms. When it realized this, the Legislature imposed a one-year moratorium on use of eminent domain for this purpose.

The Alliance wants the state legislature to recognize that the “collector” transmission lines that connect a wind farm to the national power grid are a part of the wind farm itself, and bar the use of eminent domain to force these lines across private land. The Legislature should make permanent the current moratorium.

In general, use of eminent domain should require an explicit finding, by an appropriate public body, with full disclosure and an open hearing, that the infrastructure sought to be developed serves an essential public purpose for the citizens of Wyoming, and that such public purpose cannot be served without exercise of eminent domain. The Alliance wants the burden of proof to rest with the advocates of the use of eminent domain, not with those seeking to prevent it.

Energy-export taxes should be levied equally across all sources.

Wyoming has severance taxes on coal, oil, gas and uranium that produce revenues for the state budget and the mineral trust fund. Alternative energy development – wind and solar – make no such contribution. At the same time, alternative energy development in Wyoming provides relatively few permanent jobs for Wyoming citizens, and those are relatively low-paying. In its last session, the Legislature imposed a $1 per megawatt-hour (mwh) tax on electricity generated in Wyoming, to make a start toward ensuring that Wyoming actually benefits from this development, rather than sacrificing its landscape for the benefit of citizens elsewhere.

The Alliance urges the Legislature to reconfirm and increase this tax, to at least $3/mwh (as the Governor proposed initially). If industrial wind energy can’t afford this modest levy - especially given the extensive federal subsidies it enjoys - it is inherently unsustainable. common sense tells us that commodities produced in our state and exported to other states or countries should be taxed to help fund essential government services and offset the disruption caused by production and transport of these commodities.

Prevention of multiple, redundant transmission corridors in Wyoming.

There are currently in process seven separate transmission projects being promoted by different private companies, all seeking to export Wyoming-generated power to other states, principally to the south and west. These projects are undertaken for purely private interests and without regard for the most cost-effective development of a national transmission grid. Moreover, each project can avail itself of the power of eminent domain to force landowners to cede transmission-line easements.

The Alliance believes the Legislature should impose a moratorium on further use of state land for transmission line development pending adoption of a statewide transmission corridor plan that would provide needed capacity with a minimum of disruption to the landscape and to private property rights. Contracts to build and operate this infrastructure then should be established through competitive bidding, irrespective of “legacy” utility-company service areas.