With the use of public lands off the table, the next battle in the war over bringing wind turbines to Hutchinson Island is beginning to take shape. Florida Power & Light Co. announced Tuesday morning it would no longer pursue turbines on state-owned land managed by the county at Blind Creek Park and would instead move ahead with just six turbines on land it owns around the St. Lucie Nuclear Plant. Local residents packed commission chambers for Tuesday's commission meeting where the turbines were originally set to come up for discussion. At the end of the night, commissioners agreed to work on a letter to the state outlining some general concerns they had about the Blind Creek location.

St. Lucie County shouldn't allow wind turbines anywhere on Hutchinson Island even though Florida Power & Light Co. cut its plan from nine to six turbines, several residents told county commissioners Tuesday night. "FPL's proposal for six windmills on its own property has all of the same environmental concerns as Blind Creek Park," said Julie Zahniser of the Save St. Lucie Alliance. She said there are threatened and endangered species in that area, and she doubts there's enough wind to make it feasible to generate enough electricity.

Public lands are off the table. That was Florida Power & Light Co.'s message Tuesday morning as the company announced it would no longer pursue three wind turbines on state-owned land at Blind Creek Park. Instead, it will move ahead only with the six turbines proposed for land it owns around the St. Lucie Nuclear Plant on Hutchinson Island. The issue was set to go before the County Commission tonight, as commissioners were to consider writing a letter to the state denying an easement for the Blind Creek property. Because the county manages the land, its approval would have been necessary.

Opponents of Florida Power & Light Co.'s plan to put wind turbines on South Hutchinson Island still hope to have a large crowd at tonight's St. Lucie County Commission meeting even though a majority of commissioners have said they oppose building the turbines on public land. "We're trying to get our people out, but many have the impression we've already prevailed," said Julie Zahniser of the Save St. Lucie Alliance. ...Tonight's vote deals only with FPL's request for three wind turbines on the public conservation lands. FPL also wants to build six wind turbines on its own property at the St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant.

Since FPL proposed the wind farm last summer, fierce grass-roots opposition has arisen. "The more I learn, the more I question whether wind energy makes sense anywhere in Florida," said St. Lucie County Commissioner Doug Coward. "I'm sure other local governments will go through the same learning curve." ...Calling the wind proposal a "feel-good project" designed to oblige [FL Governor] Crist, Eric Draper, policy director of Audubon of Florida, said the awareness it has generated will doom wind energy anywhere in Florida. "The wind is on the coast, where you only have environmentally sensitive land, and people who want to live by it or use it for recreation," Draper said. "They are not going to want to see these facilities on their beaches."

The St. Lucie County Commission is expected to vote Tuesday on whether to send a letter to the state's Acquisition and Restoration Council opposing Florida Power & Light Co.'s proposal to put wind turbines on publicly owned Blind Creek Park on Hutchinson Island. The park is owned by the state and the South Florida Water Management District but leased by the county. So far, at least three commissioners have publicly rejected the idea of using the conservation land for FPL's $60 million wind turbine project.

Florida Power & Light, the nation's largest provider of wind energy, says placing nine of these behemoths across from its St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant -- three on beachfront state conservation land and six on property the company owns -- would power 3,000 homes. And the company thinks the sight of the giant turbines would stimulate demand for similar wind farms across the state by a citizenry eager to do its part to halt global warming. But the $61 million project, awarded a $2.5 million state grant, is generating far more heat than light, and prospects for its survival appear dim. Since FPL unveiled the proposal last summer, it has given rise to fierce grass-roots opposition -- and raised serious doubts about the feasibility of wind energy in the Sunshine State.

A majority of county commissioners now are against putting wind turbines at Blind Creek Park, which sends a "strong signal" to Florida Power & Light Co. they should reconsider the site, Commission Chairman Joe Smith said Friday. Commissioner Paula Lewis said Friday she is against FPL putting three wind machines on the state-owned land that is managed by the county. She said she was swayed by staff memos that said it would be impossible to replace the unique archaeological and ecological land lost at Blind Creek Park by the project. "Staff's input was there was no way to replace Blind Creek," she said. "It just isn't the place." ...Grande said he thinks it's still worth having a commission meeting devoted solely to the project and said he would definitely cast a vote one way or the other at that time. "If we turn it down, we should turn it down as quickly as possible," he said.

St. Lucie County Commissioner Paula Lewis said Thursday that she won't support wind turbines in Blind Creek Park and became the third of five commissioners to speak against the project. "Conservation lands are just not the place for wind turbines," Lewis said. "I'm still pondering whether wind turbines should be allowed other places in the county." Lewis' decision means a majority of commissioners oppose the project and it would lose if the board voted today. It's not clear what effect commission rejection of the project would have on state reviews of Florida Power & Light's proposal.

The county commissioner who was most supportive of bringing wind turbines to the county is now against it. Commissioner Chris Craft, who encouraged Florida Power & Light Co. to look at the county for its wind turbine proposal, announced during Tuesday's commission meeting that he no longer supports the project. He said his decision wasn't based on the debate over public lands but on whether it would have a net positive effect for the environment. "I think this has been and will continue to be the most important issue we have debated on this board," Craft said.

As Florida moves to implement those measures and consider others, businesses are concerned. ''We are injecting into the argument what the cost will be and the competitive effect of putting our state at an economic disadvantage to all other states that don't have strict emissions standards,'' said Jose Gonzalez, vice president of government affairs for Associated Industries of Florida, a lobbying group for businesses. ``It's certainly laudable. The governor is trying to do the right thing. But the way we get there is the question.''

FPL Group on Thursday filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government, seeking payment of cleanup costs associated with old munitions at its wind site in Texas. ...While it was in the process of purchasing the property, the Juno Beach-based utility learned it may be contaminated, so it hired TetraTech, an engineering and consulting firm, to evaluate it. While TetraTech was doing this, FPL (NYSE: FPL) leased the property. The suit says FPL could not wait for TetraTech to finish its study to lease Horse Hollow because it would not be complete before the federal deadline to develop clean-energy projects that would be entitled to receive production tax credits.

For Barney Bishop, president of the Tallahassee-based Associated Industries of Florida, it's too much, too soon. "We're willing to go in the same direction the governor wants to go, but he wants to go 100 miles per hour, and we want to go 50 miles per hour," Bishop said. "They talk about, 'we can do this, we can do that,' but they just assume people are going to be willing to pay the costs." Bishop wants a cost-benefit analysis for the governor's plan, and argued that Florida won't benefit from any push to curb greenhouse gas emissions if the states around it don't do something similar.

Progress Energy's customer surveys, presented at a conference for Wall Street analysts that the company hosted in Florida, show how far public opinion has swung in this state on combating climate change. Progress Energy, which has 3.1 million customers in the Carolinas and Florida, said public opinion virtually eliminated coal plants as an option. ..."It's important to know where customers stand, because policymakers are going to be responding to public opinion," John McArthur, the company's general counsel and senior vice president, told the analysts. ...Now Progress officials say they have a new challenge: The public may be overly optimistic about the potential for renewable energy. Though environmental advocates have said alternative energy is cheaper than building power plants, Progress executives said renewables are costly and not as dependable as power plants. "The public has unrealistic expectations about renewables," McArthur said. "They think it's twice as important as reliability."

Florida Power & Light Co. received a major boost to its wind turbine project Tuesday as the company was awarded a $2.5 million state grant. ...The $2.5 million award was the maximum amount possible through the Renewable Energy Technologies Grant Program, designed to encourage renewable energy projects involving solar, hydrogen, wind and other technologies. The wind turbine project is estimated to cost about $60.8 million.

County Attorney Dan McIntyre is recommending commissioners discuss Florida Power & Light Co.'s wind turbine proposal at a meeting in late March. ...McIntyre told County Administrator Doug Anderson in a memo that the commission should discuss the project prior to the state Acquisition and Restoration Council talking about it during its April meeting.

Recent archaeological surveys show prehistoric Indians made their homes and buried their dead along the banks of Blind Creek, an area that has drawn controversy as a possible site for wind turbines. "The area has a large number of prehistoric villages and burial areas that have somehow survived all the indignities of time," said Robert Carr, of Archaeological and Historical Conservancy Inc., who directed the study. ...The first archaeological report was released to the county in January and the second became public Friday. While these types of finds are not uncommon in Florida, they have become more unusual on barrier islands, as much of the Florida coastline has been developed in recent decades, Carr said. Radiocarbon dating was not done, but Carr estimated the finds were about 1,000 to 3,000 years old, and some could possibly be older.

Mr. Craft said between 200 and 250 people showed up at last week's county commission meeting in opposition to the wind turbines on Hutchinson Island, along with a "number of people who were for them." "I'm pretty sure that the further you get from Indian River Drive, the more support you find for the project, and we have to consider the wishes of the entire community," said Mr. Craft. "But obviously, we don't want there to be a negative impact on any group of people, and that's one of the things that is part of the process; to understand what these impacts are and, if there is a net environmental gain, whether these turbines lower people's property values." Mr. Craft said the commissioners must also consider the environmental issues that may be associated with wind turbines, such as the impact on sea turtles and trout spawning and the issue of birds flying into turbine propellers.

Now the state's largest public utility, Florida Power & Light, has proposed building a line of nine wind turbines along an Atlantic Ocean beach in St. Lucie County. But three of those turbines would be built on publicly owned land bought for conservation purposes, which has led to considerable opposition. Eric Silagy from FP&L went before St. Lucie County commissioners last week to extol the virtues of the company's plan. But there is virtually no popular support among members of the St. Lucie County community. And certainly not by environmentalists.

If the community doesn't support wind turbines in the county, Florida Power & Light Co. should move its project somewhere else, according to the governor's office. Gov. Charlie Crist has told FPL it either needs to convince residents the project is a good thing or it should find another location, said spokeswoman Erin Isaac. While the governor hasn't explicitly told the company it should get out of St. Lucie County, he has stressed that a community buy-in is needed, she said. ...Despite vocal opposition from some residents, FPL says it is sticking with its plans for the wind machines in St. Lucie County.