Paradise Lost ?

Gov. Ed Rendell and Harris burg Mayor Stephen R. Reed recognize -- as too few political leaders do -- that America has a monumental energy challenge. We are overly dependent on cheap oil that could become very expensive very quickly. Responsible leadership requires that we do our utmost to reduce reliance on greenhouse-gas-producing fossil fuels.

That means we need to ratchet up investments dramatically in energy efficiency and conservation and develop alternative fuels. Last month, Rendell unveiled in Wash ington a little- noted but ambi tious energy plan he calls "America's En ergy Harvest." Reed has been using city resources to save and produce alternative energy virtually from his first day in office.

Last week the two officials, in a sense, teamed up. Among 25 projects funded all or in part by $8.5 million from the Pennsylvania Energy Development Authority announced by the governor was a $360,295 grant sought by the mayor to study the feasibility of building a wind farm on Harrisburg Authority land on the ridges above the city reservoir in Clarks Valley.

Unfortunately, as too often happens when there is a singular focus on an eminently desirable goal, other, no-less important issues and values are overlooked, if not stampeded.

What the mayor proposes, if the studies find the $40 million project to be economic, is the erection of 12 to 30 very large windmills on or near the crests of Peters and Stony mountains and a new transmission line to carry the electricity seven miles to the nearest grid.

Most of Clarks Valley is remarkably undeveloped, in large part because much of the land is in public ownership. Stony Mountain borders the northern flank of the largest roadless area in eastern Pennsylvania. In this very area, not far from the city's DeHart Reservoir, the 2,000-mile Appalachian Trail comes off Peters Mountain, crosses Clarks Valley and runs up the side of Stony Mountain before heading down into St. Anthony's Wilderness.

This great expanse of forest, streams and wild creatures is a Pennsylvania treasure. There are few if any places like it left in the Middle Atlantic region. It is something of a miracle that it has survived.

Thirty years ago, the predecessor to PPL Electric Utilities Corp. wanted to build a pumped-storage power project in Stony Valley. The Pennsylvania National Guard continues to seek control over a large swath of the north slope of Second Mountain, which guards the southern flank of this vast wild area. And now the mayor proposes to permanently scar this preserve with giant windmills.

Wind needs to be part of the energy mix. There are many places where it can work and not be intrusive. But it's not for everywhere. It doesn't belong on ridgetops where it will destroy the "viewshed" and foul the wilderness quality of the last large undeveloped tract in the region.

This $360,000 study should never have been approved in the first place. It should have raised red flags for Environmental Protection Secretary Kathleen A. McGinty, who chairs PEDA. We also question the failure of the Rendell administration to seek state siting responsibility for windmills, instead of leaving it to ill-equipped local municipal governments, in this case little-populated Rush Twp., which has neither zoning nor a windmill ordinance, nor the resources to administer them if it did.

Above all, we need to guard against allowing the urgencies of the day to destroy forever what little genuine expanses of nature we have left. We need clean energy, but we also need untrampled nature to nurture the soul.