Imagine the brouhaha if an oil company built a series of 300-foot-high oil derricks along the foot of Mt. Timpanogas. Or if an advertising firm erected billboards as tall as the Statue of Liberty in front of Y Mountain. The fur would fly. But see how different it is with the Spanish Fork wind farm. State and local dignitaries line up to praise the turbines that are a visual blight at that end of Utah Valley.

The $21 billion tax package passed last year by the House of Representatives, then defeated by the Senate, would have done serious harm by stifling production and investment. The proposed taxes would not even go to rebuild our deteriorating national infrastructure; they would simply punish U.S. energy companies and be used on a variety of pork-like, speculative projects favored by some in Congress. ...Sen. Bennett's constituents should know that his vote was crucial in removing these unwise provisions and in moving a more realistic energy policy on to final passage and signature.

According to an article printed in the Deseret Morning News on Dec. 21, the wind farm planned for the Milford area will receive tax subsidies from the state of Utah to the tune of $4.3 million. Since all of the electric power from this subsidized project will be sent to California, it is akin to exporting Utah money, by wire, to the Golden State.

Wind power has all the ingredients of a good brain buster. The non-fossil fuel energy windmills produce helps preserve the environment, but the wind generators themselves have to be added to the environment. Wind power is going to make us redefine what we consider pollution. They may not be billowing smoke or leaking radiation, but they do make a lot of noise and can change a scenic horizon into a jumble of technology. Like dams in rivers, they interrupt the free flow of natural settings.

Before those of us who will be forced to live with these windmills looming over our homes and lives fall on a grenade for the rest of the city, Hoban needs to provide more convincing evidence of the supposed benefits.