In 2007, SCE proposed its $1.72 billion dollar Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project (TRTP) to bring renewable wind energy to Southern California. A small portion of the project passes through the community of Chino Hills. This is the only community along the 173 mile route where SCE proposes to construct 200-foot high, 60-foot wide poles within 75 feet of homes. SCE has never done this before. Nor has any utility in the country ever installed a 500,000 volt transmission line so close to existing homes. Over 1,000 homes will be within 500 feet of the line, along with daycares, places of worship and parks.

Two of California's highest priority environmental causes, promoting renewable energy and saving the California condor, are on a collision course. The proliferation of prop wind turbines and their well documented history of killing birds of prey have put the future of California condor at great risk. The fact is, in recent years many missing Condors have most likely perished at wind farms in California. Many of the captive bed condors, released into the wild since 1992 have turned up missing. Nearly 1/3 of all the captive bred condors released, perish for unknown reasons. If one looks into the scientific literature, collision is nearly always listed as a major cause of death to Condors.

Governor Schwarzenegger's plan to reduce greenhouse gases could fail to reach its goals - or it could expand the use of coal power in California. ...When Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed an executive order last week to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, he made national headlines ...But a closer examination of Schwarzenegger's order reveals that the hype surrounding it may have been overblown.

Alternative energy has become quite fashionable, especially in electricity generation. Wind, solar, tides, dairies. If you can work "carbon emissions" or "global warming" into the press release, you've got a winner. Electricity is the lifeblood of our America. Are you ready to turn back the clock on your standard of living? Until the technology improves on alternative electric energy sources, they all have to be considered experimental and supplementary. Here's why.

Our public lands, however, are being attacked from every angle by every entity. Try to picture driving Old Woman Springs Road and quickly seeing 400-foot windmills on top on Black Lava Butte near Pioneertown Road and more on Flat Top. The most recent application is by Padoma Corp. for a wind farm out New Dixie Mine Road.

Over the past two decades, federal officials have brought hundreds of similar cases against energy companies. In July, for example, the Oregon-based electric utility PacifiCorp paid $1.4 million in fines and restitution for killing 232 eagles in Wyoming over the past two years. The birds were electrocuted by poorly-designed power lines. Yet there is one group of energy producers that are not being prosecuted for killing birds: wind-power companies. And wind-powered turbines are killing a vast number of birds every year.

Two of California's greatest environmental causes, renewable energy and saving the California condor, are on a collision course. The explosion of lethal prop-style wind farms being built in condor habitat is putting the hard-won future of the condor at risk. Many condors undoubtedly perish at such wind farms, although official reports attribute losses to other causes.

There is near-universal agreement that meeting the state's goals for reducing fossil fuels will require major new lines between California's cities and the places where the wind blows strongest and the sun shines steadiest. Is this power line the right project? No, but it won't be the last attempt. ...We might need new lines, but they need to built in the right way, in the right place, with the least impact to residents and our natural environment.

Size and cost alone make this project controversial, but it has become even hotter because, so far, it has been handled so poorly by the people who want to build it, the Transmission Agency of Northern California. TANC is a joint powers agency comprised of 15 publicly owned utilities, including the MID and TID. The agency's commission is chaired by MID's general manager, Allen Short. Not surprisingly, landowners all the way from Lassen and Shasta to Stanislaus and Tuolumne counties are upset -- and angry.

McEvoy Ranch spent nearly three years winning county approvals and installing a windmill that should generate enough power to run the olive ranch off Petaluma-Point Reyes Road. To win approval from the county Planning Commission, the McEvoys had to move the windmill away from the road and reduce its height by more than half to minimize its visual impact.

You may not be aware of this but across America each year thousands of birds of prey are killed at wind farms. The public perception of wind turbines is that of slow moving blades turning in the wind on a ridge line. The power and danger of the prop design wind turbine is not well understood. Probably the hardest aspect for the public to grasp is that of "tip speed." The killer of eagles and all birds at wind farms is blade tip speed. This is what kills and this is what the wind industry does not publicize or put in their environmental documents.

The agencies proposing to install 600 miles of high-voltage power lines had better be ready for a fight, because residents along the route are ready to give it to them. Most importantly, they should be prepared to explain why it's even necessary that they cut through as much forest as currently envisioned. The 200 people who showed up last week at the Red Lion Hotel's ballroom in Redding were just a taste of what's to come.

If there are two facts that anyone who has any knowledge of the Mojave Desert knows for sure, they are that the area has ample amounts of both sun and wind. There are also plenty of wide open spaces. This would make the California desert a prime candidate for the development of both solar power plants and also wind farms. ...These former railroad lands were donated to or purchased by the Department of the Interior for conservation, and thus were thought to be protected forever. But the Bureau of Land Management considers them to be open to all types of development other than mining.

So after all back and forth over the last two years about whether the wind turbines should be built on Hatchet Mountain, we hear in the Inter Mountain News that the developers are not returning calls and the project may be "delayed" due to financing problems. ...The county should make them post at least a $10 million bond to insure that if a similar financial failure strikes, guaranteed funds will be available to remove these massive turbines and restore Hatchet Mountain to its former beauty.

Energy: The governor wants to carpet the desert with solar panels. The senator says it will destroy the ecosystem. The battle between environmentalists and conservationists is one of alternative energy's big drawbacks.

The killer of eagles and all birds at wind farms is blade tip speed. ...What is hard to comprehend is that at 20 rotations per minute, the tip speed of the blades for the three turbines works out to 180 mph, 215 mph and 222 miles per hour. The speed and power of these blades is what amputates the wings and heads off flying eagles. From miles away the blades look rather slow, but up close these huge blades move faster than a guillotine.

California desert lands are in some ways a perfect fit with the renewable energy industries necessary to combat climate change. ...But without careful planning and regulation, these "climate solutions" could irrevocably damage the planet they are intended to protect. The biologically rich but arid desert ecosystems are remarkably fragile. Once topsoil and plant life have been disrupted for the placement of solar arrays, wind farms, power plants, transmission lines and carbon dioxide scrubbers, restoration would be cost-prohibitive, if not technically impossible. And widespread desert construction - even of projects aimed at environmental mitigation - would devastate the very organisms and ecosystems best able to adjust to a warming world.

The biologically rich but arid desert ecosystems are remarkably fragile. Once topsoil and plant life have been disrupted for the placement of solar arrays, wind farms, power plants, transmission lines and CO2 scrubbers, restoration would be cost-prohibitive, if not technically impossible. And widespread desert construction -- even of projects aimed at environmental mitigation -- would devastate the very organisms and ecosystems best able to adjust to a warming world. Nevertheless, there is a public land rush underway.

Federal approval could come early this year, after a seven-year fight with opponents, including environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who might see the towers on the horizon five miles offshore from their vacation homes. Will we have the same battles here, or will Marin accept the installation of renewable energy producing facilities "in our backyard"? Enthusiastic support for the abstract concept of renewable energy sources now meets the reality of what's on the ground.