Virginia Power Company Applies to Build Wind Farm Near Charleston,W

Virginia Power Company Applies to Build Wind Farm near Charleston,W. Va.

By Jim Balow, The Charleston Gazette, W.Va. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business

News Oct. 24--Call it the stealth wind power project, if you like.

With absolutely no fanfare, a Virginia power company has applied for a state

permit to build up to 40 1.5-megawatt wind turbines on the Tucker-Grant county

line.

The application, filed on Aug. 16, is slowly moving through the Public Service

Commission, which has scheduled a public hearing on Dec. 9 in Charleston for

the Dominion Mount Storm Inc. project.

"There are two reasons" why the company didn't make a public announcement,

said Dan Genest, a spokesman for Dominion. The Richmond-based energy company

owns the power plant at Mount Storm in Grant County, where the wind project

would be built.

"We haven't made a firm decision as to whether we're going ahead with it,"

Genest said Wednesday. "Having said that, we're going ahead with all the

feasibility studies.

"Second, in doing our environmental studies, we discovered some northern

flying squirrels at the project site. From what I understand, it's a

subspecies of the flying squirrel that's been declared endangered. Because of

that, we're putting it on a slower track."

In fact, the discovery of a colony of endangered squirrels could prompt

Dominion to ask the PSC to postpone the December public hearing, he said.

The Dominion project is the fourth wind-powered electric generation facility

proposed for West Virginia -- all in the Tucker-Grant county area.

Already under construction is a 44-tower, 66-megawatt project on Backbone

Mountain in Tucker County called the Mountaineer Wind Energy Center.

The project should be finished by the end of the year.

Mount Storm Wind Force has won PSC approval to build 166 windmills, which

would produce up to 250 megawatts of power, near Mount Storm.

And NedPower Mount Storm has applied to the PSC to build 200 wind turbines

that would produce up to 300 megawatts of power, also in the Mount Storm area.

Until recently, the wind projects had the apparent blessing of the business

community in Tucker and Grant counties.

The only opposition seemed to be coming from environmentalists, who worry

about damage to birds and protected species, noise and visual pollution.

That situation may be changing as Mountaineer Wind Energy's towers -- each

more than 200 feet high without their long rotor blades -- are emerging along

Backbone Mountain in Tucker County.

John Cooper, a longtime Parsons lawyer, wrote to the PSC last week, saying

that many of the Dominion wind towers "will irreparably, obtrusively and

permanently impair the viewshed of the Canaan Valley and the area of Dolly

Sods and surrounding Forest Service lands which sit atop Cabin Mountain.

"The vista of Tucker County is now forever blemished by these structures and

they are by nowhere close to being completed," he wrote.

They can be seen from many places in the county -- downtown Thomas, W.Va. 32

outside Davis and U.S. 219 near Tucker County High School, he wrote.

"Perhaps, we should change the name of Tucker County to 'West Virginia

Netherlands." The roadside looks like an unbroken line of white 'Lego'

cylinders at present and it will only get worse."

"I'm all for clean-fuel technology," Cooper said Wednesday. "What I'm not

pleased about is there are no guidelines for placing these towers, for spacing

them."

Most of the projects are on land owned by companies based outside of West

Virginia, so the benefits of tower leases paid will also go out of state,

Cooper said. "What I don't like is our county is getting zilch. We're getting

an agreement in lieu of taxes.

"We draw most of our money from tourism. People come from all parts of West

Virginia, from Virginia, Maryland, the District of Columbia, North Carolina,

to see the pristine things here ... But whether people will be interested in

taking their families to pristine areas when they're shrouded in windmills --

I don't know."

Environmentalists, too, have weighed in. Judy Rodd wrote a letter of protest

for Friends of Blackwater and Friends of the Allegheny Front.

"It's going to overlook the Canaan Valley," Rodd said Wednesday. "All the

local people are upset. From our point of view, before a permit is issued,

there needs to be an independent study of bird migration routes and how

they're affected by weather. Are they misled by lighted towers?" The same

sorts of studies are being asked for in Maryland, she said.

Billy Jack Gregg, consumer advocate for the PSC, said as the Backbone Mountain

project nears completion, he's hoping "that people will make their own

judgments.

"If there's a big negative public reaction, it's going to be very hard to get

any more projects approved," Gregg said. "If you have a major outpouring of

opposition, it will have an impact on the commission."

To see more of The Charleston Gazette, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to

Business News.

Developer Says West Virginia Has Best Wind Energy Potential in East.

By Jim Balow, The Charleston Gazette, W.Va. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business

News

Oct. 5--"West Virginia is known for all the minerals, the energy in the

ground," Theo De Wolff said Friday, "but West Virginia has energy in the air."

He should know. As one of the founders and partners of Atlantic Renewable

Energy Corp., De Wolff helped develop the first wind power project that is now

taking shape on Backbone Mountain in Tucker County.

Using slides of the project, the Dutch native spoke to the Charleston Rotary

Club at the University of Charleston Friday.

"Wind power is the fastest-growing segment of renewable energy," he said.

Developers are installing 6,000 megawatts of capacity a year, including the 66

megawatt Backbone Mountain project, now called the Mountaineer Wind Energy

Center by its new owners, FPL Energy.

Internationally, countries like Germany and Spain lead the way, he said. In

the United States, California has the most installed wind energy capacity,

thanks to incentives put in place years ago by former Gov. Jerry Brown. "Last

year there was a lot of activity in Texas and the Midwest.

"Why is wind energy getting more popular? It's getting less expensive. The

industry has matured."

The equipment is getting bigger, he said. Twenty years ago, a typical wind

turbine produced 25 kilowatts of power. "Now, turbines are 25 to 30 times

bigger." By comparison, each of the 44 turbines at the Tucker County site can

put out 1.5 megawatts of power.

"The economies of scale make wind power more competitive with fossil-fueled

power." Even so, wind power sells for up to 25 percent more than conventional

electric power, he said. Customers who buy wind power have to be willing to

pay a premium for pollution-free "green" power.

"Why do we have wind power coming to West Virginia?" he asked. "West Virginia

has some of the best wind resources on the East Coast." He showed a wind map

that showed the best wind sites concentrated in the eastern mountains of the

state.

The federal Department of Energy estimates that the state has the potential

for 5,000 megawatts of wind power, he said, mainly in Grant, Greenbrier,

Pocahontas, Pendleton, Randolph and Tucker counties.

Besides the Backbone Mountain project that is under construction, developers

have proposed two other wind farms in the state -- both near Mount Storm in

Grant County. The state Public Service Commission has approved a 250-megawatt

project for Mount Storm Wind Force and is considering a proposal for a

300-megawatt project by NedPower Mount Storm LLC.

To see more of The Charleston Gazette, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to

The Battle Has Begun! NIMBY is setting in locally.

ALLEGHENY ENERGY Local utility and owner of Canaan lands was trading at $35 last year in now $4.90 per share. They are selling land for another reason nowadays