Peter Gross of Babcock and Brown presented a request for a permit to put up another meteorological tower in the town of Westfield. According to Gross, after the public meetings about the possibility of wind farms in the Westfield-Ripley area, several families approached him about how they could become involved in the project. "They came to us which started us looking at the possibilities in that area," Gross said. "We won't know for sure until we have the readings from the met tower but we're proceeding with hopeful caution."

"Although the wind turbines currently operating in the wind resource area do adversely impact our radar coverage, we believe opportunities will soon arise both to improve overall radar performance and to work with enXco to mitigate that impact," the Lichte letter read. Neither the Air Force nor enXco could say whether that mitigation effort will include a gift to Travis of up to $1 million that was offered by enXco at a Feb. 21 Solano County Planning Commission meeting. That money was offered to improve the radar system anyway Travis chose.

Kern County's western Mojave Desert landscape could include up to 300 more wind turbines in the near future. ...Northrop Grumman complained they would have to shut down their nearby B2 bomber test facility if the turbines are built. Homeowners also protested that the pristine 6,000 acre site would be ruined by the development of the wind farm.

The commission voted 3-1 to support the PdV Wind Energy Project by Power Partners Southwest LLC, an entity affiliated with enXco, to move forward with plans to place 100 to 300 wind turbines on nearly 6,000 acres about 15 miles west of Rosamond. ...Dave Mazur, a vice president and program manager for the B2 bomber, said the turbines would interfere with its operations at the Tejon Test Facility, so much so that it would have to close. The facility works on stealth technology testing and many classified military contracts, but it's not a military installation. Northrup asked the commission to postpone any decision so a third party, cleared to review classified issues, could review the project.

Reaction from residents on a presentation of Victor Valley College's planned wind turbine project was overwhelmingly negative ...The main concern that Silverman was admittedly unable to refute was the visual impact of the project. He showed computer-generated images of where the windmill will be and what it will look like from different locations. According to the pictures, residents with homes on the east side of the Mojave River would have the clearest view of the project.

"The California Bureau of Land Management has had over 100 applications in the desert, many of them in the 1st District," said Apple Valley Town Councilman Scott Nassif, who found out about the projects through concerned residents. "My fear that there was a proliferation of these projects has come to fruition." Once they get a foothold on a certain area, they just multiply from there, Nassif added. ..."My concern is there is other uses for the desert such as mining, cattle grazing, recreation and military operations," Mitzelfelt said. "I don't want to see all of our remaining desert that's available to people covered in windmills and solar plants."

Exclamations of dismay rang among the crowd last Saturday night as Dave Miller of the California Desert Coalition presented his renderings of what Green Path North would do to scenic vistas in the Morongo Basin. Miller superimposed huge transmission towers onto photos of desert panoramas, depicting the lines snaking through canyons and topping buttes. The Los Angeles Department of Power and Water Green Path North project would carve an 118-mile swath through the desert in order to erect transmission towers up to 200 feet tall on public and private land. The towers would deliver renewable electricity from geothermal, wind and solar sources from the Imperial Valley to Los Angeles.

Sometimes the vagaries of county government even can confuse folks who attend and participate in a meeting - and maybe even the decision-makers themselves. A curious case in point - The Tuesday, Oct. 2 Lassen County Planning Commission meeting where an application for a meteorological tower on private land was up for approval. Opponents of Invenergy's Horse Lake Wind Farm project claim they won a round at the meeting because the commission failed to approve the permit application. ...Anderson said while none of the other commissioners apparently wanted to approve the permit application, the commission did not make and carry a motion to disapprove it before moving on to other business.

Travis Air Force Base officials have taken a stance against proposals to add more than 100 wind turbines in the Montezuma Hills, saying they may interfere with a new radar system the base will begin to install in November.

Two supervisors in Riverside County, one of California's top producers of wind energy, want the region to be exempt from new statewide guidelines aimed at reducing the deaths of hawks, bats, owls and other animals from windmills.

The number of power towers behind homes on Paseo Del Palacio Street will be increased by 50 percent. The street is just one example of a densely populated residential area that will be affected by the proposed power line project. For every two existing power lines, a new one will be added in between, said Chuck Adamson, Southern California Edison's senior project manager, about Paseo Del Palacio Street on Tuesday.

The environmental impact report (EIR) for a proposed 80-turbine wind farm near Mojave is adequate, an appeals court has ruled, clearing the way for construction to begin. In approving the EIR, the 5th District Court of Appeal in Fresno rejected the arguments of the Kerncrest and Los Angeles branches of the Audubon Society. The court also ordered the Audubon society to pay legal bills incurred by the Los Angeles City Department of Water and Power (LADWP).

A plan for a giant power line through San Diego County has suffered setbacks and delays this month, and some industry observers -- though not all -- suggest that the proposed line's chances of approval are shrinking. A state official last week ordered a delay in the approval process for the $1.3 billion project, known as Sunrise Powerlink, because the 150-mile line proposed by San Diego Gas & Electric Co. raised unanswered environmental questions.

A state commissioner today issued a ruling that will delay a decision on San Diego Gas & Electric Co's proposed power line until summer 2008 at the earliest. A decision on the $1.3 billion Sunrise Powerlink, a 150-mile superhighway of electricity the utility wants to string between El Centro and San Diego, was scheduled to be delivered in January 2008. However, because of new information about the project's potential impacts that surfaced in hearings this month, Commissioner Dian M. Grueneich postponed the Aug. 3 completion date for an environmental impact report until Jan. 8, 2008. Grueneich ordered the final report to be delivered by June 6, 2008.

Wind turbines slated for land in and north of Palm Springs gained momentum Wednesday when the City Council rejected the latest set of appeals from opponents of the Dillon Wind Project. The project, proposed by Oregon-based PPM Energy, would place five 327-foot turbines in the city and 40 additional turbines in unincorporated land north of Palm Springs and west of Desert Hot Springs. The Planning Commission approved the five turbines May 23 for land west of Indian Canyon Drive, north of Interstate 10 and east of Highway 62. Nearby landowners appealed the decision to the City Council. The council voted unanimously Wednesday to deny the appeals.

With a group of Bouquet Canyon residents outspoken against the project - in part to what is seen as a visual disturbance - a key decision looms over a high voltage power line project that will run into Santa Clarita. State utility officials approved the Antelope-Pardee 500 kV Transmission Project in March. It plans to deliver power generated from future wind farms in the Antelope Valley to an electrical substation in the Valencia Industrial Center and distribute it throughout Southern California. Angeles National Forest Supervisor Jody Noiron must still sign off on the project for it to be fully approved. Part of the route runs through the Angeles National Forest north of Santa Clarita. Noiron's decision was anticipated in May, but has yet to come.

The state's public utilities commission opened an intensive three weeks of public hearings Monday on San Diego Gas & Electric Co.'s controversial $1.3 billion proposal to build high-power lines across the county with five hours of testimony at the county administration center. The company has been pushing for new lines, called the Sunrise Powerlink since 2005, saying they are needed to keep up with the county's growing electrical demand, prevent the region from suffering summer blackouts and to bring state-mandated "green" solar- and wind-created electricity to the region.

Sempra Energy has taken its first step into the clean energy business by buying rights to a proposed wind farm in Baja California. The company said yesterday that it will buy co-development rights from Cannon Power Corp., which is also based in San Diego, to a proposed 250-megawatt wind generation project in La Rumorosa, about 70 miles east of San Diego and south of the international border. Sempra declined to disclose what it paid for its interest but said that full development of the wind farm would cost about $400 million. A 250-megawatt project could generate enough electricity to power tens of thousands of homes or more, depending on wind conditions.

Southern California Edison on Friday applied to the California Public Utilities Commission and the U.S. Forest Service for authorization to construct Segments 4-11 of the Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project. The project - a series of new and upgraded high-voltage electric transmission lines - will deliver electricity from proposed new wind farms in the Tehachapi Wind Resource Area to SCE customers and the California transmission grid.

CHINO HILLS - The City Council voted Tuesday evening to help its residents fight Southern California Edison's proposal to expand transmission lines, some of which border homes in the city. The 3-0 vote was anticipated by the nearly 150 residents who showed up to gain the city's support. As a result, authorization was given for the city manager and city attorney to spend $600,000 to hire a consultant to review Edison's project and propose alternatives. The consultant will also assist the city in preparing a protest to the project, which may include the request for a hearing. The protest must be filed within 30 days from Edison's application.