Attending a Public Hearing on a Windfarm

Filed in archive Wind on January 16, 2010

© johnnyalive


I attending a public hearing recently to comment on a proposed windfarm in my home county, Tazewell County, Va.

BP and Dominion Power proposed a windfarm for Tazewell County almost a year ago now. The project would put 400-foot wind turbines on East River Mountain, overlooking Bluefield on the Virginia-West Virginia state line. At the moment the city has one of the most beautiful (and populated) viewsheds in Appalachia. The site is not far from the Jefferson National Forest.

Not quite a hundred people signed up to speak. The public hearing was held during a snow storm, but that didn't seem to deter many people. Money and jobs were the primary issues in the debate. Eighty percent of the people who spoke either had a piece of land that they hoped BP and Dominion would put a windmill on or had a house in the general area of the project and feared that their quality of life would be somehow lowered by the wind project and that their property value would go down. A representative of Dominion spoke. A couple of people from out of state environmental groups spoke.

Dominion has aired radio ads touting the economic development impact of the project. I saw an article recently on a report about the jobs to be created by the wind energy in Nebraska. The report said wind energy would create 40,000 jobs in Nebraska over the next couple of decades - 4,000 of which would be permanent. The story was interesting because it was the first time I've seen the jobs figures spelled out that clearly. Ninety percent of wind jobs are temporary.

It's the same here. BP likes to make a big point of the fact that the project would create about 150 construction jobs - jobs that woldn't last a whole year. After a short employment boost and a shot in the local arm from construction spending, the long term economic impact for us (in terms of jobs) is about the same as someone coming in and opening a new fast food franchise. The county is in an uproar, and three or four years down the line it's like we got a new Pizza Hut: 10, maybe 15 jobs.

One reason BP is here is that the county has no zoning ordinance. The county's governing board will probably vote in the next few weeks on an ordinance that would protect ridges in the area from construction and put an end to the windfarm proposal here.