The Windber Area Authority’s watershed and recharge area has been sentenced to death. This death sentence is being imposed by Gov. Ed Rendell, and will be executed by Gamesa Energy, Berwind Natural Resources Corporation, a few greedy private landowners, and of course the many spin-doctors needed to sway public opinion. This death-sentence will be accomplished by the ill-placement of 34 Wind Turbines, with more likely to follow, directly in the watershed and recharge area! Wind Turbines, will be placed within approximately 3,000 feet of W.A.A. well-heads!

Our state leaders are promulgating a false choice between wind and coal. While wind is renewable and cleaner than coal, wind will never replace coal — wind is too unreliable.

This is why renewable energy is such an essential plan for the future. And conservation. And conservation is a much more intelligent solution. We have the technology to stop global warming- but wind turbines are not the answer. They are the problem. Wind energy is a flawed technology that is only viable by political intrusion into what should be the province of engineers who understand the science. Wind Turbine tax subsidies are a poorly considered attempt by the federal government to look “green.”

Renewable energy sources are a great hope for the future. But there is a time and place for everything. The time for the construction of wind power facilities is after environmental impact studies. The place is anywhere away from people and off of ridge-tops.

Most people I know are very much in support of utilizing alternative energy sources, including wind. The primary point of contention is the insistence that ridgetops are the only places that they can be placed to generate “viable” amounts of electricity, even though studies have shown that existing sites in the state only produce about 30 percent of their rated capacity. Is this really worth sacrificing our mountains, wildlife and scenic views for?

Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Katie McGinty’s claim that the huge bat kill resulting from the Mountaineer industrial windfarm in West Virginia was an “aberration” is false. The kill rate for bats due to collision with the blades of industrial wind turbines on forested ridgetops east of the Mississippi River is 50-100 bats per turbine per year.

Don’t let wind companies get away without regulation. Wind turbines are very, very inefficient and will do little to help our energy problem, reduce the need for coal generated energy, or curb global warming. What will work is a statewide energy conservation program in addition to common sense in siting wind turbines. Appropriate places would include urban settings and industrial parks.

Like everything else, common sense and a decent respect for the other important elements in the equation must be part of windmill siting. While we understand that owners of windmills are looking for optimal wind conditions, if this energy source is to succeed on any scale it is going to have to apply more sophisticated approaches to deploy them under less than ideal but workable conditions, such as in urban settings and industrial parks. Unless the state adopts windmill-siting standards, it can only mean trouble for an alternative form of energy the Rendell administration is heavily promoting. That is not an approach that can make serious headway in moving the state away from its overreliance on fossil fuels.

The “Penobscot Wind Park” is clearly an inappropriate and incompatible use of county conservation and recreational land. We support the efforts of the current Bear Creek supervisors as they attempt to bring order to this project, which was given a free reign by the previous township administration. For our part DOW, with our partners from Bear Creek Township, will continue to fight for taxpayers rights in court. Concerned sportsmen, and Luzerne County residents should demand that the majority Luzerne County commissioners begin to protect this property and the rights of the taxpayers who will ultimately pay for it.

As we have said before, we favor the development of alternate sources of energy, including wind power, but care must be taken. Environmental, aesthetic and other issues loom.

There are many forms of alternative energy. Wind-power is just one of them. Europe and other countries have dealt with it - and it's many problems for decades. Problems such as noise, shadow flicker, destruction of bird and wildlife habitat, ruination of ridge tops and pristine areas - to mention a few.

Nor will environmentally friendly wind, solar and biomass power meet the need, despite their growing popularity. These up-and-coming renewable resources merit further development and investment, but the sun doesn't always shine, and the wind doesn't always blow when you want it to. For now, their intermittent qualities render them incapable of serving a large population's daily needs.

It’s simply not in the best interest of the industry, the public and the environment to place massive windmills across the commonwealth without ground rules about where they can be appropriately built with the least amount of negative impact.

Most helpful would be a statewide guide for windmill sitings. Currently, there's little to prevent a developer from erecting a windmill farm just about anywhere.....Plastering the ridge tops of Pennsylvania with windmills is eventually going to outrage residents who value the beauty of this state and value the birds, bats and other critters that travel along the ridges, for whom windmills pose a threat.

The debate was put into a proper perspective by the Times-Tribune newspaper in Scranton., which wrote: “America’s future as a world power and leading economy will be determined largely by its ability to meet the increasing demand for energy, while weaning itself from foreign oil and protecting the environment.

Once an unusual site – a tourist destination – windmills and wind farms are sprouting up, or soon will make a presence, on seemingly every high mountaintop in our region. And understandably, not everyone is happy. Certainly, some Somerset County residents still are angry years after windmills “invaded” their hillsides.

The Department of Conservation and Natural Resources has determined that the development of a wind farm on this land is not consistent with the intent of the grant program that was used to purchase it.

Despite the zoning classification of “conservation,” the previous majority supervisors and their allies, perhaps intoxicated by $3,000 annual payments for each of the 34 turbines, have been willing to bend, if not outright violate, township ordinances to push this project forward.

Had Mayor Stephen R. Reed come forth with a windmill project that tapped Harrisburg's wind assets, we would have been enthusiastic supporters. Instead, he proposes building a wind farm in rural Clarks Valley, on the ridges above the city's DeHart Reservoir, and marring one of the last large tracts of wild country left in eastern Pennsylvania.

Juniata Valley Audubon asks concerned residents to contact Gov. Ed Rendell, their senators and representatives and the Department of Environmental Protection to voice their displeasure over the gross waste of almost $400,000 to study a proposal that would cause so much harm to both outdoor recreation and wildlife, and provide only minuscule amounts of expensive, unreliable electricity.