Five members of Mountain Communities for Responsible Energy (MCRE) spoke in opposition to the installation of the 40-story giants on the ridges near Trout and Williamsbug. "To give you some perspective," Dave Buhrman offered, "a county commissioner would be smaller than a quarter photographed next to one of these towers." Buhrman stressed the potentially negative effects on the county's important tourist industry. "Mountain views millions of years in the making will be altered during one building season," he stressed. "When people can no longer get a sense that this area is wild, wonderful, and undisturbed, they will look elsewhere- we are putting Greenbrier County's future economic potential at risk by allowing the wind industry access to our loftiest vistas."

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"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," Dave Groberg, project developer for Invenergy Wind LLC told 60 members of Mountain Communities for Responsible Energy (MCRE) Tuesday at Williamsburg’s community center. "While many people find wind turbines graceful and attractive, others disagree." He was referring to the 131 wind turbines his Chicago-based company hopes to erect on the mountain ridges of northwestern Greenbrier County.

Energy Policy General USA West Virginia

I walked on my normal walk in the woods one day and looked up to the top of the mountain. Just several months before it had been a picturesque view of wilderness beauty ... the kind that attracts tourists and creates much of the state's income. Now, it was lined with these tall mechanical monsters, towering over the trees of an old forest. I am not talking about the quaint and charming windmills of Holland here, we are talking about metal and flashing lights and a size that miniaturizes the grand forest beneath it.

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"I think the battleground is right here in the county right now with the landowners who've said no," said Sites.

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As Chicago-based Invenergy plans a wind generation factory across the scenic mountains of northwestern Greenbrier County, numerous voices have been raised in protest.

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