A single wind farm located in a scenic setting outside this rural Canadian town was featured on a postage stamp three years ago.

Today, the cumulative stamp of hundreds of turbines on the views of wide-open farmland and majestic mountains here is an increasingly sticky issue.

"How many is too many?" asked Rod Zielinski, a municipal district councilman in Pincher Creek, 250 miles north of Great Falls.

Last year, the district unsuccessfully tried to create a wind development-free zone in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains. Now it's proposing changes to its bylaws to address "cumulative effect."

The proposed amendments have met fierce resistance from wind developers and landowners. They say the proposed new rules would not only put a damper on future development, but also unfairly restrict how private property owners could use their land.

To most landowners, wind is just another crop, said Kevin Van Koughnett of Calgary-based TransAlta Wind.

"It's a huge amount of land you're talking about excluding," he said.

The outcome of the showdown should be of interest to residents of Great Falls and northern Montana communities as they prepare for the construction of new wind farms stretching from the Electric City to the Canadian border.

Some residents value tax revenue and jobs more than vistas, and vice versa, Zielinski said. Weighing these equally important but sometimes competing values is the contentious issue in regulating the siting of wind plants, he said.

"Be prepared for these things to be there forever, like the bank downtown," he said.

Winds blow steady

Before wind-generation development took off here, fueled by rising electricity prices and high winds, the town of Pincher Creek, population 3,197 used to be known as just the "windiest place around," said Roland Milligan, the district's development director. The population of the Pincher Creek Municipal District, which is akin to a Montana county, is 6,600.

Winds blow so steady here that it's home to a kite festival, and wind surfers travel from as far away as Calgary and British Columbia to race across Oldman Reservoir.

"You see the wind blocks around the picnic tables?" asked Milligan as he drove by a park aptly named "Windy Point."

Today, the 866,000-acre Pincher Creek Municipal District isn't just known as a windy place, it also is officially billed as the "Wind Energy Capital of Canada." In 2004, the Canadian Wind Energy Association conducted its annual convention here, and the town's logo and visitors' guide prominently feature wind turbines.

More than 200 turbines dot ridges, farmland and the rolling terrain leading up eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains - and more are planned.

The majority of residents continue to favor wind development, particularly agricultural producers who receive a percentage of the profits from the facilities, Milligan said. However, some residents are beginning to view them as "a blight on the landscape," he said.

The municipal district council is attempting to protect natural resources without over-regulating the industry, he said.

"We have to balance the need for energy with the need for preserving the viewscapes," Milligan said.

Top tax producer

The country's first commercial wind farm was sited here in 1994, but wind development really took off in 2000, after deregulation of electric utilities drove up electricity prices. Eight additional wind plants have followed for a total of 236 towers producing 225 megawatts of electricity, but the development isn't over.

Another 598 megawatts of output is proposed, buoyed by a major upgrade planned for an existing 138-kilovolt line that ships the green energy throughout the province. If those plans proceed, the district's total output would top 800 megawatts. The entire country of Canada produces 1,900 megawatts of wind-generated electricity.

Van Koughnett said the region's prevailing western winds are so powerful that they are hard on the equipment. The average wind speed is 19 mph, but sustained wind speeds can be much higher because the air is compressed as it climbs the western sides of the mountains, and then it quickly decompresses on the other side.

"It's just like a garden hose, clamping it over, then releasing it," Van Koughnett said. "Water shoots out."

West-facing turbines on the east side of the mountains are designed to capture the explosion of wind and turn it into electricity.

Some spots in the area have a remarkable 35 percent to 40 percent wind "capacity factor," meaning that 35 percent to 40 percent of the time the turbines generate electricity at their rated capacity.

"Some sites in Europe, they're looking at 20 percent capacity factor and they're still building wind farms," Milligan said.

The wind farms generated $1.5 million in taxes for the municipal district in fiscal year 2008, or roughly 20 percent of its entire tax revenue, said Mat Bonertz, the district's director of finance and administration. TransAlta, the largest developer in the area, recently wrote a check to the municipal district for $915,000.

By comparison, Judith Gap, Montana's largest wind farm to date, produced $522,473 in property taxes for Wheatland County in 2007. The facility's owner, Invenergy, also pays a monthly impact fee of $65,000 to the county.

Oil and gas facilities generate 40 percent of the taxes in the municipal district, but that industry is not growing as quickly as wind energy.

"From our standpoint, it's the best form of taxation because there's minimal services required by the wind industry," Bonert said.

New rules proposed

Nine months ago, a proposal was brought to the public to amend the municipal district's bylaws to create a no-development zone in an area with views of distant mountains.

"We think there's a value to our mountain views," Zielinski said. "We want to retain the values the community wants."

The restricted zone was opposed by wind developers and landowners, so the council backed off, Zielinski said.

Instead, the council is working on rules that would define "cumulative effect," increasing setbacks between wind farms and other land uses and including a clause that developers can't exceed noise restrictions set by the Alberta Utilities Commission, which is the provisional governing authority that permits farms before can interconnect with transmission lines.

As it stands now, the council reviews projects on a case-by-case basis, he said.

"We think there are places where they should and should not be," he said.

The proposed changes in the bylaws will be released for public review before summer's end, Milligan said.

Wind developers object

Van Koughnett said the new proposals are just the original no-development zone dressed up in a different suit.

"How do you come up with something that's highly subjective?" he said.

He compares creating a zone where turbines would not be allowed to drawing a line in the sand, and then telling landowners on one side that they cannot earn revenue from leasing land for wind generation while those on the other side can reap the profits.

Van Koughnett said that a Hutterite colony that leases land to TransAlta earns $150,000 annually.

The company has turbines located in the proposed original restricted zone, and is concerned the new rules would restrict expansion of those facilities as well as new development.

Noise from the turbines isn't an issue, Van Koughnett said.

"We're standing in the middle of a turbine row and we're carrying on a normal conversation," said Van Koughnett, as the giant blades went "swoosh, swoosh, swoosh" overhead.

TransAlta officials have suggested that the district put the new rules on the ballot so the people can decide. A survey previously conducted by the municipal district to gauge support for wind development showed residents overwhelmingly back the industry, Van Koughnett said.

Support mixed

One of the supporters of wind development is T.J. Kaur, the owner of the West Castle Motel, which would benefit during construction because workers need lodging, she said.

"We're hoping they will put more up," she said. "It's natural we make electricity from wind, which saves us from other sources. We're trying to go green."

Wind surfers Kevin Blades, a 45-year-old backcountry guide and ski patrol employee from Kimberly, B.C., and Ed Oke, a 34-year-old firefighter from Calgary, were taking advantage of the wind to race across Oldman Reservoir. Oke pointed to a couple of nearby turbines and said there should be rows of towers, not just a few scattered ones.

"I think they are beautiful because they're a sign of clean energy," Oke said.

"Big coal-fired smoke stacks are pretty ugly, too," Blades added.

Zielinski said support for additional guidelines for the industry is broader than opponents make it out to be. In a small town, some residents fear speaking up because they don't want to appear as if they oppose their neighbors or green energy. The survey Van Koughnett referenced was misleading, Zielinski said, because it asked a general question about whether residents favored wind-generated electricity.

"It did not say: "Are you supportive of 300-foot towers in front of your picture window for wind power?" he said.

Van Koughnett said some view the majestic wind turbines as art, noting TransAlta's scenically sited Castle River wind farm, which features 60 turbines, graced a Canadian stamp in 2005.

He slowed his vehicle to admire the white Castle River turbines as they turned in the wind, with the distant Rocky Mountains serving as the backdrop. The S-shaped Castle River flowed in the foreground.

"That's probably the most picturesque wind farm in the world," Van Koughnett said.