For all the benefits that wind power could bring, it's important to understand the very real impact these industrial wind power projects would have on this sensitive area. Roads and turbine construction would fragment more than 60,000 acres of undeveloped habitat. Each windmill covers more than an acre of airspace as its 100-foot blades spin, and each turbine requires 1,000 tons of concrete to anchor it to the ground. This project would include more than 21 miles of new electrical towers to support the high-voltage transmission line. More roads, more cranes, more impact.

But the Texas Gulf Coast is properly described as the crown jewel of bird-watching venues. The Great Texas Coastal Birding Trail spans the entire 624 miles of our Gulf Coast, from Beaumont to Brownsville the first of its kind in the nation.

Exercise your right as an American and be heard. Call the General Land Office at (512) 463-5001 and demand that the concerns of the scientific community be met before turbines are erected in the Gulf of Mexico. Absent that, we may finally experience Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring.