The beauty of East River Mountain is in jeopardy according to a group of citizens who are against the proposed wind turbine project. This group has grown from a group of 6 to a group of 150. They have a laundry list of reasons why they don't want industrial size wind turbines on our mountains.

The magnitude of these structures shocked our county officials but will they generate revenue of the same magnitude? "Land owners get their annual fees from what is produced. Then also the county would only be able to do the personal property tax. And a personal property tax would be on each individual wind turbine. And under personal property, it would depreciate each year too." says Supervisor David Anderson. The construction phase would create some revenue as well.

The developers of a proposed wind farm on Green Mountain will conduct their first public meeting of 2009 tonight at the Wind Lea Banquet and Conference Center. The public meeting of the US WindForce Pinnacle Wind Farm Advisory Panel is set to start at 6 p.m. The meeting, which continues the monthly updates held since last spring, will focus on setting the agenda for future advisory meetings through the coming year.

Lawyers for the $300 million Beech Ridge Energy project in Greenbrier County say they were blind-sided when anti-windfarm advocates recently filed documents with the state Public Service Commission suggesting a "proposed settlement agreement" was in the works to decrease the number of giant, electric-producing turbines by nearly 50 percent. ...Feinberg accused MCRE of "attempting to mislead the commission" that a settlement was near at hand.

The developers of the proposed Pinnacle Wind Farm near Keyser will not submit the project to the West Virginia Public Service Commission until sometime in February. Stepping back from the recent timeline that called for an early-December submission, officials with US WindForce said the project has been delayed by the numerous details that must be addressed in any such application.

Two companies are proposing to convert wind into energy in Tazewell County through the development of 60 large-scale windmills along the crest of East River Mountain. The two unidentified companies are proposing to build as many as 60 windmills that would be 400 feet tall along the ridges of East River Mountain in Bluefield, Va., David Anderson, the Eastern District member of the Tazewell County Board of Supervisors, said.

A group of Mineral and Grant county residents who own property in the vicinity of the Nancy Hanks Memorial have asked the Mineral County Commission to petition Gov. Joe Manchin for a moratorium on the construction of any additional wind turbines in the state. Harriett Hartman, Bill and Leigh Burt, Joe McKenney, Frank Roleff and Greg Trainor all appealed to the commissioners Tuesday to do what they can to stop the construction of a wind farm along New Creek Mountain and the tip of the Saddle.

A group concerned about proposed wind energy development on Saddle Mountain says placing turbines there could alter the landscape of an area now recognized as the birthplace of Nancy Hanks Lincoln.

The Public Service Commission recently approved the 65-turbine wind farm on the Laurel Mountain Ridge between Randolph and Barbour counties. ..."They have to be maintained and they have to be taken down and money has to be provided for that," said Commissioner Elbon. "You know how we ended up with all the strip mines all over West Virginia. The state had to pay to have those things taken care of. This won't happen with the windmills."

As U.S. WindForce prepares to present its application to the West Virginia Public Service Commission, Dave Friend, vice president for sales and marketing, said the company is looking to do more with the community. "We've been working at the community level for a while," Friend said. "We formed a community advisory panel, which has a cross section from the Keyser, New Creek and Elk Garden area. The goal was to involve the community in our planning process."

US WindForce officials met Monday night to outline plans for a charitable fund the company plans to launch as part of its 23-turbine Pinnacle wind farm, but the meeting turned to the merits of the project itself, as residents rose to register their opposition. "I'm totally against putting 23 turbines on Green Mountain, for obvious reasons," said Keyser resident Mike Wilson. Wilson said the turbines, which will rise 418 feet above the crest of Green Mountain, just west of Keyser, will detract from the natural experience campers savor at Jennings-Randolph Lake's award-winning campground, "2 miles by air" from the turbines.

US Windforce has been hosting monthly meetings of the Community Advisory Panel since spring, when the company began its public outreach for the wind farm. Towering 418 feet, the turbines will rise along the crest of Green Mountain, from just north of the Pinnacle radio tower site, all the way to where the mountain drops down to the Potomac River near Keyser. ...The main topic of discussion Monday night will be the community benefit fund, which US WindForce plans to seed with annual donations of $20,000 for the life of the project, if the wind farm is approved.

According to Blanchard, McBride told DHR, "I can tell you right now, you're going to see them [the turbines]." Agency officials explained to McBride the DHR is not trying to stop his project, but they do need this information to evaluate it. "Mac couldn't seem to understand that," Blanchard said. "Mac is a developer, and he naturally wants the path of least resistance. He kept talking about how much it's going to cost." Blanchard said DHR officials told McBride the State Corporation Commission's order granting HNWD a permit stipulates the company is to work with DHR on these issues. "They told him what they needed," Blanchard said.

The question of how Invenergy would "decommission," or tear down, its $300 million Beech Ridge Energy wind farm came into question during Wednesday's state Public Service Commission compliance hearing A plan for decommissioning all of Beech Ridge Energy's 124 wind turbines slated for north-central Greenbrier County was one of 18 preconstruction conditions mandated by the PSC. Beech Ridge hired the Nebraska-based civil engineering firm HDR to prepare a "decommission report".

With final approval of a siting permit less than a week away, anti-windfarm activists are firing yet another round of legal salvos in their bid to stop the construction of 124 wind turbines slated for north-central Greenbrier County. State Public Service Commission hearings begin next Wednesday to determine if Beech Ridge Energy, owned by the Chicago-based company Invenergy, has complied with dozens of preconstruction terms that the PSC ordered when a conditional building permit was approved in 2007. ...Dave Buhrman said the Washington law firm Meyer Glitzenstein & Crystal has been hired to sue Beech Ridge over potential violations of the Endangered Species Act if construction goes forward.

Members of the US WindForce Community Advisory Panel met this week to review wildlife reports and other updates from the proposed Pinnacle wind power project planned for Northeast West Virginia. The Pinnacle project seeks to erect 23 turbines atop Green Mountain, running from the northern end of the Allegheny Wildlife Management Area, northward about 3 miles to the end of the ridgeline near the Potomac River. In development since 2003, the project is approaching the end of the planning stage, with WindForce officials planning to submit the application to the West Virginia Public Service Commission by December.

The environmental group, along with lead plaintiff Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition and West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, alleges in a lawsuit that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers overstepped its authority by permitting four southern West Virginia valley fills in direct violation of the Clean Water Act and the national Environmental Protection Act. That case, won by the plaintiffs in West Virginia southern district court, was heard Sept. 23 at the federal 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. "This is just the latest in a continuing legal saga. We've been on this trip since about 1996," said Jason Bostic, vice president of the West Virginia Coal Association.

After reviewing thousands of pages of testimony and comments from numerous public hearings, Judges Mark A. Hoyer and Michael A. Nemec in a 364-page document said Allegheny Energy, through its transmission line subsidiary TrAILCo had "failed to carry the burden of truth" for the entire 240-mile project. "Based on our review of the entire record, we have concluded that little or no need for reinforcement in the Prexy service area presently exists," the judges wrote.

Before the day is out, upwards of 1 million folks across the nation are getting a glimpse of an idea generated by Coal River Mountain Watch to usher in a series of turbines in southern West Virginia as a means of cranking out wind-generated power. ..."We've been talking with several companies who are interested," Noerpel said Monday. "We've pitched it to several companies that are trying to move forward with this. A lot of wind companies are looking to come into Appalachia and setting up on our ridges."

They're up and they're spinning. Dozens of wind turbines in Grant County are generating electricity, though they haven't been without problems. Crossing into Virginia, there's a proposal for about 130 wind turbines to be built in the George Washington National Forest, as well as a much smaller operation in Highland County. However, these projects haven't developed without some strong opposition. The process takes years. Now, phase one is almost complete, 80 turbines are spinning in Mount Storm, West Virginia. Still, some local homeowners, like Bruce Halgren, are challenging the project in court.