Alternative Energy Sources Have Their Costs, Too; And Some of Them Are Environmental

   The location in Highland County, Virginia where 19 wind turbines are planned.  Source of photo:  online version of the NYT article cited below.

 

MONTEREY, Va. — Wes Maupin says he will move this spring to a 20-acre spread here in remote Highland County, a pastoral place where sheep outnumber people and where little has changed since his boyhood, when he fished the county’s mountain streams with his father.

Mr. Maupin, a 52-year-old former corrections worker, does have one misgiving, though. Like many others in Highland, known for its rustic heights as Virginia’s Switzerland, he finds no joy in the prospect that these blustery Allegheny ridges could soon become home to the state’s first wind farm: 19 wind turbines, each taller than the Statue of Liberty, its pedestal included.

“Any wind farm,” Mr. Maupin said, “would surely change the character of this county forever.”

. . .

. . . Randy Richardson, president of Highlanders for Responsible Development, a group that opposes the project, said people worried about noise pollution from the turbines’ blades and light pollution from the red strobes that would alert aircraft to the 400-foot-tall structures.

 

For the full story, see: 

PAMELA J. PODGER.  "In a Corner of Virginia’s ‘Switzerland,’ a Division Over a Planned Wind Farm."  The New York Times  (Tues., February 13, 2007):  A17.

(Note:  ellipses added.)

 

 WindTurbineVirginiaMap.jpg   Source of map:  online version of the NYT article cited above.

 

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