Please click on the highlighted name of each organization to go directly to their websites for vital news and information that may assist you in a number of ways with your campaign to stop irresponsible wind power development in your area.

National Wind Watch

Industrial Wind Action Group

National Wind Watch™ is a nonprofit organization that promotes awareness of the negative impacts of industrial wind energy development on our environment, economy, and quality of life.

Energy security and the need to reduce pollutants and other emissions are serious issues. Therefore, we should not be distracted by symbolic or "feel-good" gestures that fail to meaningfully address these issues and in fact do substantial harm. We advocate an intellectually honest assessment of the benefits and costs of industrial wind development. Our objective is to be a resource of information and assistance for individuals and local groups seeking the facts about industrial wind power.

National Wind Watch provides a means for diverse groups to share information and strengthen each other. We are all unpaid volunteers with many other demands on our time and resources but consider this effort an important contribution to protecting our world.

Industrial Wind Action Group was formed to counteract the misleading information promulgated by the wind energy industry and various environmental groups. Support for this effort comes from a large and diversified group of environmentalists, energy experts, and ordinary citizens.

The rapid growth of industrial wind energy has been fostered by federal and state policies that, while well intentioned, fail to reflect wind energy's limitations as an energy source, its ineffectiveness in reducing emissions, and its impacts on our environment, economy and quality of life.

Industrial Wind Action stands ready to assist communities threatened with industrial wind energy projects by providing residents, as well as government officials, the information to make informed decisions.

Industrial Wind Action (IWA) Group:
Exposes the impacts of industrial wind energy on our environment, economy and quality of life through fact-based analyses;
Assists communities threatened with unwanted industrialization;
Advises officials at the federal, state and local levels regarding wind energy policy to counteract misleading information from the wind energy industry and some environmental groups.

June 14, 2007



Your online editorial entitled "Rahall and Mollohan Anti-Wind Energy Stance a Lot of Hot Air" [June 8, 2007 http://www.huntingt onnews.net/ editor/070608- ed.html] could not be more ill-informed or wrong-headed.



Your editorial claims that in raising environmental concerns about wind-energy projects, I am motivated solely by a desire to protect "Big Coal." Let me remind you that the environmental concerns I have been raising are also being raised by thousands of West Virginians across our state, including those citizens who have been opposing construction of the 200-turbine NedPower Mount Storm project in Grant County, the 124-turbine "Beech Ridge" project in Greenbrier County, and the 50-turbine "Liberty Gap" project in Pendleton County. Among those who have been opposing these projects - which would spread 400-foot high industrial turbines across our beautiful mountain ridges - are some of the most prominent environmental advocates in our State. Are you saying that these citizens, too, are nothing more than stalking horses for, or dupes of, "Big Coal"?



Your editorial also attempts to denigrate the environmental concerns that we have been raising by claiming that they concern nothing more than "birds and bats." Certainly the impacts of these massive industrial projects on wildlife are a major concern, but I have made it clear that at least of equal concern is the visual impacts that these projects would have our mountain ridges. I strongly believe that the mountains and natural beauty of our state are in themselves precious resources, and I have been deeply concerned that industrial wind-energy projects are being approved in our state without regard to the cumulative, long-term visual impact that these projects will have. Let me remind you too that this isn't simply a matter of aesthetics - rather, our tourism and recreation industries and property values in many areas are substantially based the striking beauty of our mountains.



Regarding the impacts of wind turbines on birds and bats, your editorial improperly minimizes the extent of that impact ("True, there have been some birds and bats who have been caught up in some wind turbines."), and incorrectly states that this problem has been solved by "new technologies involving radar equipment." Your assertions on these points will certainly come as a surprise to, for example, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which stated one year ago that the estimates of bat mortality at the Mountaineer project in Tucker County "are among the highest ever reported in the world," and that new projects in West Virginia will likely result in the same or even greater bat mortality. Your assertions will also come as a surprise to the members of the expert committee of the National Research Council, which last month issued a report stating that large-scale development of wind energy in the Mid-Atlantic region should not take place unless and until the risks to bats are identified and understood.



Among the points regarding wind energy that were conveniently ignored in your editorial are these -



According to the National Research Council report, despite the rapid growth in wind energy that is now occurring and is expected to continue, by 2020 wind energy will generate only between 1.2% and 4.5% of our country's total output of electrical energy.



The Council's report also states that in mid-Atlantic region, the availability of wind energy is lowest when the demand for electricity is the highest - that is, the afternoon hours of summer months.



Wind-energy projects are highly subsidized by the taxpayers through tax subsidies. The industry would not exist without the Federal Production Tax Credit, which over the years will enable the large energy companies to escape paying billions of dollars in federal income taxes. Projects in West Virginia are further subsidized through property and business tax preferences.



My basic position on wind energy in our state is that before decisions are made on building industrial turbines across our mountain ridges, we should have a good idea of what the costs as well as the benefits of those projects will be to West Virginians, both now and in the future. There can be honest disagreements about what those costs and benefits will be, and how they should be weighed. But I hope no one would disagree with the proposition that the decisions to be made on wind turbines - which raise the prospect of permanently altering the face of our State - should be made in a fully informed, considered way.



To that end, I believe the immediate need is for there to be a serious, public discussion of wind energy in this State. Members of the news media can play an important part in this discussion, but only to the extent that they report the facts, study the issues carefully, and issue thoughtful commentaries -- rather than merely publishing industry talking points.



Most sincerely,



Alan B. Mollohan Washington, DC

By BILL THEOBALD

Gannett News Service

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

WASHINGTON — Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander warned Tuesday that utility bills could jump dramatically in the state and that its mountains might be threatened if a proposal to require every state to generate a certain amount of wind power is included in an energy bill being considered by the Senate.



Alexander sent out a release and called a news conference to decry a proposal by Sen. Jeff Bingaman, even though the New Mexico Democrat's amendment requiring each state to generate a certain portion of its energy through renewable methods has not even been offered.



Bingaman is chairman of the Senate Energy Committee and will manage debate on the bill.



Alexander said the Tennessee Valley Authority estimates the proposal would add

$410 million a year to utility bills in the state. Alexander said building large wind farms would deface the beauty of the Smoky Mountains.



Most of the wind energy potential in the country is west of the Mississippi, Alexander said. The energy bill, H.R. 6, already has passed the House.



Alexander has long been a critic of wind energy, saying that the gigantic modern windmills scar the landscape and that the production of wind energy is not feasible without government subsidies.

Source: The Counter Cape Wind Blog