We congratulate all involved — county commissioners and the county Planning Department — for the county’s tall structure ordinance, which commissioners unanimously approved Monday night. As Lori Wynn says today in a front-page story, it took nine months of public hearings, multiple drafts and countless e-mails, but Carteret County finally has an ordinance regulating wind turbines and communication towers. ...While Progress Energy would have bought the power, that would not have mitigated any electricity to customers because wind is unpredictable and energy generated from industrial wind power can’t be stored so conventional energy sources would still be necessary.

In my humble opinion when any organization actively pursuing wind power options, promoting legislation that would support those options and taking it upon themselves to define responsible siting criteria publishes a "model" ordinance, it's going to be an ordinance promoting the interest of wind production and wind producers. And what could have prompted the need for wind proponents to create their own model ordinance? Well, according to Brent Summerville, wind program manager at ASU's Energy Center, "Some wind ordinances have passed that are not favorable to utility scale wind development.

Too often the energy companies have allowed claims about renewable energy to go unchallenged. Experience shows that once the public learns about the effects, those expectations fall back to Earth. Just look at wind power in North Carolina, if you can. Wind farms haven't gotten off the ground here because, thus far, North Carolinians have objected to looking at a wind turbine larger than a hamster wheel. On Monday, Carteret County decreed a nine-month moratorium on wind turbines, after residents complained about potential noise, vibration, harm to wildlife, visual blight and a host of other concerns. Who knew wind turbines were as dangerous as a Navy outlying landing field?

Development should certainly be regulated on mountain slopes and ridges, as governments in Northwest North Carolina have finally started to do in the last few years....Few people want huge, sprawling farms of towering windmills. Regulations, including countywide zoning, are needed to make sure that doesn't happen. Neighboring Ashe County faces serious challenges in dealing with a proposed industrial-scale windmill farm in large part because it lacks a comprehensive land-use plan. Ashe did approve an ordinance a few months ago that would govern wind-energy systems such as windmill farms, but that may have been too late.

Regarding your article “Ashe board approves ordinance … ” (Feb. 20), the Ashe County commissioners should be commended for leading our state in developing a local ordinance that protects their mountain resources and all their citizens. While recognizing the need for the development of alternative energy sources, Ashe County has made its position clear that development of 400-foot-high wind turbines on mountain ridges is not acceptable.

Wind power would seem to be a necessary component of any strategy by North Carolina to increase the amount of energy produced here from alternative sources. Put simply, there’s plenty of wind in these parts. The downside is that sections of the state where wind currents are strongest and most consistent also happen to be ones that are heavily dependent on tourism and where there is an understandable priority on protecting natural views. That holds for the coast, and it holds for the mountains. The issue of whether and how to take advantage of mountain winds now is before the state Utilities Commission. The commission yesterday held a hearing focused on a proposed Ashe County “wind farm” — 25 or so giant turbines that would be built near Creston in the state’s far northwest. It is easy to see why the project has stirred local opposition in an area where vacation-home development is an economic mainstay.

In short, an ugly fight is looming. On one level, it’s a fight between progressives who stress conservation of scenic views against progressives who stress alternative sources of energy. And it’s a fight that could have been avoided. Ashe County commissioners should finally get the message that they need a comprehensive land-use plan, one designed to meet the challenges posed by plans for windmill farms and many other kinds of development. There’s considerable citizen resistance to such a plan. But commissioners need to lead on this issue and take control of their county’s future.

Regarding Rick Martinez's Feb. 3 column about ridgetop windmills, my opposition to the proposed facility in Ashe County is not about "pretty power" -- it is about preserving our Blue Ridge landscape. What is proposed in Ashe County are 28 turbines standing 365 high, each approximately three times the height of the 10-story Sugartop condominium building in Avery County. It was this building that united landowners, environmentalists and politicians to press for passage of North Carolina's Mountain Ridge Protection Act of 1983.