Before the 2006 trial, the judge wouldn't let plaintiffs argue that the towering turbines were a nuisance based on their blinking lights or how they looked. After the two-week trial in which noise levels and land values were discussed, jurors ruled in favor of FPL Energy. In a ruling issued Thursday, the 11th Court of Appeals said the trial judge did not err because Texas law "does not provide a nuisance action for aesthetical impact." But the appeals court seemed sympathetic to landowners.

The dispute over construction of two wind farms adjacent to the famed King Ranch in south Texas entered the courts Tuesday when an alliance of conservation and related groups filed lawsuits to stop the projects. The Coastal Habitat Alliance, which includes King Ranch, filed separate lawsuits in state and federal court in Austin. The federal lawsuit claims the state has not done a thorough analysis of the impact the farms and their massive turbines will have on wetlands, habitat, endangered species and migratory birds. It seeks a declaratory judgment and, if needed, an injunction against the developers, whose combined initial investments are expected to top $1 billion. The state lawsuit claims the Texas Public Utility Commission illegally denied the alliance a chance to intervene in the PUC's hearings on transmission lines for the wind farms. ...But the alliance claims that because Texas receives federal funds to help protect the coastal region through the Coastal Zone Management Act, a thorough environmental review of the wind projects is required.

But what happens when a good idea is put in the wrong place? "You've gotta look at the ecological setting. And some settings are wrong for it," said Jim Blackburn, a Houston-based environmental lawyer working for the Coastal Habitat Alliance, CHA. Projects by two companies now underway would put 600 wind turbines about 400 feet tall along the South Texas coast. That's where millions of migratory birds must pass through to fly south for the winter. "It's a world-class worst site," said Blackburn. CHA and other coastal environmental groups say the blades will kill the birds, and project threatens valuable Texas wetlands. But the companies behind the wind farms don't need any state permits to build.

The Hill Country's natural beauty is under assault, some say, all in the name of supplying power to the masses. Last week, Rep. Harvey Hilderbran asked the Texas Public Utility Commission to consider routing new transmission lines down U.S. 277 and east along Interstate 10 to the lift station in Comfort to minimize the impact to private property owners. ..."I understand the need to distribute power efficiently and effectively to all areas of Texas," Hilderbran said in a letter to the PUC. "But not at the expense of diminishing property values and the pristine views of the Hill County."

After years of battling environmentalists worried about the mixture of towering windmills and one of the world's busiest migratory bird flyways, Babcock & Brown opened its wind farm on the Kenedy Ranch. The wind farm will sport a bird radar detection system that company officials tout as the first of its kind. The system can automatically stop the blades if the potential for a mass bird kill is detected.

A failed attempt by one alternative energy company has not stopped efforts to bring wind farms to the Hill Country. A West Texas-based company has approached landowners in Llano and Gillespie counties, and yet another wind power company has approached a landowner in Mason County.

County leaders are working with state legislators to change the way wind farms are regulated in Texas. Robert Weatherford is the president of Save Our Scenic Hill Country, a group of land owners working to keep wind farms out of the area. "You will literally be able to see them for miles. So we do think that it would destroy the scenic beauty of the Texas hill country," Weatherford said. ...Gillespie County is worried that would mean less visitors like Jones. "That's why people come to these places, is to see the view," Jones said.

About 150 landowners and concerned residents met in Harper Thursday to discuss possible construction of a private electric transmission line through Gillespie County. "We basically wanted to get together and pool our information," Martha Stevens, who helped organize the meeting, said. "We live in an awfully pretty part of Texas, and there are important questions we need to ask." Landowners are concerned, Ms. Stevens said, that construction of power lines will diminish property values and harm the Hill Country's appeal to tourists.

More than 100 citizens voted to oppose power line construction in northwest Gillespie County during a public meeting attended by more than 200 people Thursday evening in Harper. The meeting was the second held there in four weeks after more than 150 residents met Aug. 21 to learn more about plans by Midland-based Hilliard Energy to lease land for possible construction of a private transmission line in that part of the county. "I think there's a lot of pressure coming from Hilliard Energy," said Martha Stevens who is on a citizens committee which opposes construction. "They're not going to lease this land if they're not going to use it, I wouldn't think."

Two wind farms, part of a $2 billion project, have been proposed near Hebbronville, just east of Laredo. Corpus Christi-based American Shoreline and its partner, San Diego, Calif.-based Eviva Spinnaker, plan to develop the 800-megawatt wind project. It calls for 400 turbines about 350 feet tall spread out over 35,000 acres in Jim Hogg, Webb and Zapata counties. The electricity that would be generated from the two wind farms would power about 220,000 homes. The project recently was announced and has not received vocal opposition. But if vocal opposition toward two Kenedy County wind projects is any indication, there soon will be. Kenedy County is about 100 miles south of Corpus Christi.

Four speakers took turns explaining adverse consequences of life with wind farms Tuesday at a Brownwood Area Chamber of Commerce luncheon that focused on the downside of turbines. ...Burns said through six generations, his family has endured drought, declining economic farm conditions and other adversities, but they've always known that "if you work hard, you can tough it out. The land restores you. The land's beauty is its primary value, but all of the property in Brown County is being threatened. Someone else will make the decisions about our land, and it can never be reversed if (the decisions) are wrong." Brown County resident Dr. John Dunn said county government can't prevent wind turbines from being placed on property where owners allow it, but it can choose not to allow tax abatements to encourage their placement.

A regional conservation group is pointing out where birds and wind farms might not mix. A Playa Lakes Joint Venture mapping project shows the few remaining acres of habitat for the lesser prairie chicken and where playa lakes can draw large numbers of migrating birds. "There has been a lot of interest from the wind industry, local and state conservation groups and state agencies," said Megan McLachlan, a geographic-information system analyst for the group. "We've gotten a lot of phone calls the last couple of months asking us to share the data. There's a lot of people working on the issue."

Ladd said the purpose of tonight's meeting is to get concerned taxpayers who don't like the idea of "wasting our tax dollars, increasing our electric bills and diminishing our property values 30 to 40 percent" involved. "If it were not for the tax credits involved, we would not have wind turbines being constructed in the state of Texas," Ladd said. "... It's the biggest waste of tax dollars I have ever seen."

Several Maxdale and Ding Dong residents are opposing a proposed power line project for aesthetic and financial reasons. "I live in the country; nobody out here wants this," said Sherry Fisher, a landowner with 450 acres of pristine ranch land that may be disturbed by the new towers. Two weeks ago, Oncor sent newsletters to landowners whose land could be crossed by towers.

Nearly all of some 175 landowners raised their hands during a meeting here Friday when a West Texas lawmaker asked how many wanted legislators to oppose billionaire T. Boone Pickens' efforts to obtain rights of way for water pipeline and electricity transmission lines. The lines would also pass through parts of Archer, Hardeman, Jack, Wichita and Wilbarger counties. A similar meeting has been scheduled Thursday in Holliday. One landowner shouted "Do it," during the show of hands urging lawmakers fight Pickens' attempts to obtain rights of way to build the world's largest wind farm and to ship water from the Panhandle to thirsty areas downstate. No one - not even Pickens' representatives - raised their hands when state Sen. Bob Duncan asked who wanted lawmakers to support the projects.

JACKSBORO — The wind rustling the oak trees on the Squaw Mountain Ranch soon may be its undoing as a starkly empty, unspoiled corner of North Texas. Riding the boom that last year pushed Texas past California as the nation’s leading wind energy producer, a wind power company wants to scatter 100 turbines across an area roughly nine miles long and two miles wide, with at least a dozen of the 250-foot towers on the ranch. “I’m not interested in having blinking red lights causing the Milky Way not to be as bright or to hear them when now I hear nothing up here except the sounds of nature,” said ranch manager Dan Stephenson, explaining why the ranch declined to lease land for the project and objects to its neighbors leasing as well. “Wind farm, that’s a spin term,” Stephenson said as he took in a vista of tree-covered ridgelines. “I call them wind turbine industrial zones.”

The office announced Thursday that it has reached an agreement with Baryonyx Corp., a Houston-based green energy company, that could turn waters off the island coast into the nation's biggest wind farm. Baryonyx Corp. was the sole bidder for the right to build a wind farm off the island's eastern shore, GLO spokesman Jim Suydam said.

Having dodged wind farms near Enchanted Rock, those intent on preserving the beauty and property values in and around this Hill Country city are now focused on power lines. About 250 people met here Wednesday night to hear Texas Wildlife Association speakers discuss major new power lines planned to deliver electricity to metropolitan areas from huge wind farms being developed in West Texas and the Panhandle.

Jennifer Harris, Laughlin Air Force Base chief of asset optimization, told members of the City of Del Rio-Val Verde County Joint Airport Zoning Board during a meeting Wednesday, “Laughlin Air Force Base is concerned that the proposed wind farm in the Anacacho Mountain Range (in Kinney County) may have a significant negative impact on its core flying mission.” Harris told Joint Airport Zoning Board members that Laughlin does not oppose the development of wind farms and other sources of renewable energy sources “that do not adversely impact military readiness or training of U.S. armed forces.”

Folks in several nearby towns, about 100 miles southwest of Dallas, are fighting to make sure the same thing doesn't happen to them. ...They say the companies are swooping in -- even into areas that aren't as windy -- because federal tax credits for wind developers expire at year's end unless Congress extends the subsidy. Opponents also are holding meetings and erecting yard signs protesting turbines, disputing that wind energy works at all. ...They say that unreliability isn't worth sacrificing their scenic vistas and high property values.