Recall how beautiful and unspoiled the west shoreline of the Laguna Madre was the last time you saw it? Well, hold on to that memory because if Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson has his way, much of that shoreline soon will becluttered with giant wind turbines.

Patterson currently is helping foreign and domestic interests in their efforts to locate wind factories along the most precious parts of our Texas Coast. If citizens like you don't wake up and contact your elected officials soon, the coast will be lost to wind factories.

Construction of the first 84 Mitsubishi turbines is scheduled to begin early in 2008 on the Kenedy Ranch north of Port Mansfield. Each turbine will rise 413 feet high and have a blade diameter of about 200 feet. (That's 400 percent taller than an average water tower!)

Anyone who thinks these monsters will not kill birds and bats, and destroy wildlife habitat, as well as the beauty and serenity of the Laguna Madre, is sadly mistaken. The Kenedy Ranch site is smack in the middle of the busiest flyway in America. This is not some Chicken Little, pie-in-the-sky deal. This will be the ugly truth by this time next year if we fail to act.

Perhaps the most alarming difference between wind factories and other types of power plants is the acreage consumed. A nuclear power plant requires a modest 500 acres, while a wind factory needs 150,000 acres or more to generate the same amount of power.

In the United States, the hottest days are the least windy and when the wind doesn't blow, no power is generated. As a result, wind turns out to be a good way to save fuel but, because wind energy cannot be saved, it is not a good way to avoid building plants that burn fossil fuels. A wind machine is a bit like a bicycle that a commuter keeps in the garage for sunny days. It saves gasoline, but the commuter has to own a car anyway.

Wind power does not, in fact, live up to the claims made by its advocates. Its impact on the environment and people's lives is far from benign. Research also reveals that there is a very cozy relationship between fossil fuel plant owners and wind factory owners. The reason is simple: the more you build wind factories, the more you must build fossil fuel plants. Wind factories cannot operate without standby fossil fuel plants.

What a scam! They lead people to believe they replace fossil fuel plants, but the truth is that they perpetuate them! How soon people forget Enron's smoke-and-mirrors business plan.

If Jerry Patterson's vision of the Texas coast is one full of wind turbines, then perhaps Texas needs a new land commissioner.