Ridgeline?

[EH31 2,520]

what happened last night at the meeting?

[Deleted Account 5,203]

what happened last night at the meeting?

 

I've heard that the ordinance passed, and that there will be no windmills allowed.

[GMan 3,569]

Correct...vote was 3-2...chairman voted for (was probably going to get something out of the deal if it passed) and Northwest Dist. Sup. voted for (as usual, anything that can hurt the east end of the county will be endorsed by the west end and besides, it wasn't going to be in his backyard).

 

Good wins, evil dies...

[Deleted Account 5,203]

Correct...vote was 3-2...chairman voted for (was probably going to get something out of the deal if it passed) and Northwest Dist. Sup. voted for (as usual, anything that can hurt the east end of the county will be endorsed by the west end and besides, it wasn't going to be in his backyard).

 

Good wins, evil dies...

 

It's not NEARLY as simple as this. There are three HUGE issues with this ordinance that the people of Tazewell County (mainly Bluefield) have seriously neglected, because most of them can't get past the point of "OMG FANS ON MOUNTAINSIDES = UGLY".

 

1. There would have been a $10,000,000 initial investment into Tazewell County by BP/Dominion. Ten. Million. Dollars. For a county that's swimming in debt as Tazewell County has been for the past umpteen years, that's a HUGE sum of money. Even if Absher/White would get a cut of the money (which I doubt), it's still a sum of money that could breathe some life into this area. This is completely aside from money that would be donated to those whose property the windmills would be placed on, which leads me to...

 

2. Probably the most important of these issues is the fact that this ordinance takes a huge poopy dump all over individual property rights, and in all likelihood violates the Fourteenth Amendment's procedural and substantive due process. If BP/Dominion contracted with individual landowners to place their windmills on the top of someone else's PRIVATELY-OWNED land, who in the Hell are we to stop them? Put another way: if you found gold in your backyard, and contracted with Acme Gold Removing Company to remove it, only your entire county got together and coaxed the Board of Supervisors into barring it, how would you feel?

 

3. Southwest Virginia just blew a golden opportunity to get in on the ground floor of the renewable energy movement. Unless the previous 35 years haven't served as a glaring reminder to everyone here, THE COAL INDUSTRY IS DYING. Just like the antebellum south put all its money into "King Cotton", rural Appalachia has put all its money into "King Coal". Not coincidentally, people have left SWVA in droves, either by death or by their own doing. Also not coincidentally, this is also tangentially related to school consolidation and Graham/Grundy dropping to play A ball instead of growing and prospering (we can discuss that in the sports forum). Back to the main point: we are sitting on a freaking gold mine of renewable wind energy in SWVA. It would be THE ticket to getting SWVA back on the right track to growth and prosperity. Only now it can't happen, because it'd make the mountainsides ugly. Lunacy...

 

These three points should hit everyone in SWVA dead in the face. As for me personally, I'm for the windmills, but I'm not as gung-ho as this post makes me look. I'm just stating with ferocity the three arguments people tend to gloss over. I understand the argument of the "will of the people", but I just wish people would give these arguments a moment of their time, rather than putting all their eggs into the "EWWW IT'S UGLY" basket.

 

Needless to say, this battle's far from over, especially based on the legal ramifications of #2. Stay tuned...

[BigD4VT 11]

^THIS^

 

Tazewell County just turned away another industry! Maybe the windmill folks can find a site in TN near the Eastman Kodak plant that was rejected by Tazewell County. Or maybe the Saturn plant that could have been here...

[GMan 3,569]

^THIS^

 

Tazewell County just turned away another industry! Maybe the windmill folks can find a site in TN near the Eastman Kodak plant that was rejected by Tazewell County. Or maybe the Saturn plant that could have been here...

 

Please, do you REALLY think that Eastman Kodak and Saturn SERIOUSLY considered locating in Tazewell Co.??? We were merely a pawn in their game...

[BigD4VT 11]

I don't know if they were serious. I wasn't very old and don't remember that much about it, but if Tazewell County didn't want them it doesn't matter if they were serious or not.

[Lance 228]

I don't know if they were serious. I wasn't very old and don't remember that much about it, but if Tazewell County didn't want them it doesn't matter if they were serious or not.

 

all i know is that people in charge around here are pretty stupid...someone tries to do anything to make it better and everyone freaks out, yells Voodoo! and runs. It's sad.

 

And Tazewell county should learn something from Russell County about bringing in new business...I've heard first hand about companies that wanted Tazewell County to do something as simple as run the electric lines for a place to locate here and they were turned down...they went to Russell County and they not only ran the lines but gave them a tax break...no wonder Tazewell County has nothing...and never will...it's pretty sad actually that a County would turn away any sort of positive opportunity that comes along.

 

If you drive from LA to San Fran you will see all kinds of Windmill Farms...it's not a big deal...pretty neat actually. The County should have worked some sort of deal to get an energy credit or something for the people of the County...made it something positive that everyone would benefit from...even if only a few bucks or whatever...or maybe some sort of community investment....I'm sure something could be done...instead once again you have nothing....congrats!

[GMan 3,569]

The County should have worked some sort of deal to get an energy credit or something for the people of the County...

 

There's the rub...the power generated by these windmills was not going to the people in this area...it was being sold off to other areas...therefore, an "energy credit" was not a possiblity for the folks of Tazewell Co....

 

And Lance, think about it...AEP...energy credit...what are you smoking today??? :D

[Hacker 82]

My two cents follow. First, I spent a few years doing the Economic Development thing and know that Saturn was focused on KY, TN and AL. They wanted a site on I-65 and a Right to Work state.

 

I will put a simple question to you all. If BP & Dominion have been working on this deal for 18 months, and have been privy to the ordinance as it was being drafted, do you really think they can't find a way to "live" with this ordinance? My guess is that they have contingency plans in place for what happened last night. That may be a different county (Bland), or other sites in Tazewell County.

 

Also keep in mind that BP & Dominion may be far enough along on the project, they can go ahead at the current site. I am not privy to that information, but would not be surprised.

 

I don't think this is a dead issue, yet.

[BigBlueAlum 12]

It's not NEARLY as simple as this. There are three HUGE issues with this ordinance that the people of Tazewell County (mainly Bluefield) have seriously neglected, because most of them can't get past the point of "OMG FANS ON MOUNTAINSIDES = UGLY".

 

1. There would have been a $10,000,000 initial investment into Tazewell County by BP/Dominion. Ten. Million. Dollars. For a county that's swimming in debt as Tazewell County has been for the past umpteen years, that's a HUGE sum of money. Even if Absher/White would get a cut of the money (which I doubt), it's still a sum of money that could breathe some life into this area. This is completely aside from money that would be donated to those whose property the windmills would be placed on, which leads me to...

 

2. Probably the most important of these issues is the fact that this ordinance takes a huge poopy dump all over individual property rights, and in all likelihood violates the Fourteenth Amendment's procedural and substantive due process. If BP/Dominion contracted with individual landowners to place their windmills on the top of someone else's PRIVATELY-OWNED land, who in the Hell are we to stop them? Put another way: if you found gold in your backyard, and contracted with Acme Gold Removing Company to remove it, only your entire county got together and coaxed the Board of Supervisors into barring it, how would you feel?

 

3. Southwest Virginia just blew a golden opportunity to get in on the ground floor of the renewable energy movement. Unless the previous 35 years haven't served as a glaring reminder to everyone here, THE COAL INDUSTRY IS DYING. Just like the antebellum south put all its money into "King Cotton", rural Appalachia has put all its money into "King Coal". Not coincidentally, people have left SWVA in droves, either by death or by their own doing. Also not coincidentally, this is also tangentially related to school consolidation and Graham/Grundy dropping to play A ball instead of growing and prospering (we can discuss that in the sports forum). Back to the main point: we are sitting on a freaking gold mine of renewable wind energy in SWVA. It would be THE ticket to getting SWVA back on the right track to growth and prosperity. Only now it can't happen, because it'd make the mountainsides ugly. Lunacy...

 

These three points should hit everyone in SWVA dead in the face. As for me personally, I'm for the windmills, but I'm not as gung-ho as this post makes me look. I'm just stating with ferocity the three arguments people tend to gloss over. I understand the argument of the "will of the people", but I just wish people would give these arguments a moment of their time, rather than putting all their eggs into the "EWWW IT'S UGLY" basket.

 

Needless to say, this battle's far from over, especially based on the legal ramifications of #2. Stay tuned...

 

Couldn't agree more.

[GMan 3,569]

My two cents follow. First, I spent a few years doing the Economic Development thing and know that Saturn was focused on KY, TN and AL. They wanted a site on I-65 and a Right to Work state.

 

As for Eastman Kodak, they were established in Kingsport in 1920-ish. They never had any plans of moving from that location or establishing a location in Tazewell Co. for several reasons: 1) the amount of power they use on a daily basis couldn't be supplied in Tazewell Co....they had TVA and its hydroelectric facilities at their disposal from 1950 until present; 2) the amount of water they needed on a daily basis couldn't be supplied in Tazewell Co....they had the South Holston River, and after the 1950s, thanks to TVA, Fort Patrick Henry Dam in their back yard; and 3) there wasn't a large enough site suitable for their needs in Tazewell Co. worth the investment especially when they already had a site with over 4,000 acres at their current location.

 

"Pipe dreams" typically turn out to be someone just blowing smoke up someone else's ass...

[Lance 228]

There's the rub...the power generated by these windmills was not going to the people in this area...it was being sold off to other areas...therefore, an "energy credit" was not a possiblity for the folks of Tazewell Co....

 

And Lance, think about it...AEP...energy credit...what are you smoking today??? :D

 

thats what I'm saying...they should have worked "something" out that would benefit the people.

[GMan 3,569]

thats what I'm saying...they should have worked "something" out that would benefit the people.

 

But they couldn't...AEP and BP/Dominion are separate entities and it would probably ended up costing us more for electricity since AEP would have had to "buy" the power generated by BP/Dominion...they would have passed that cost on to us with another rate hike...see what I'm saying???

[buzzsawBeaver 12]

Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. This wasn't an opportunity for anyone but the people in the power business, at the people of tazewell counties expense. This wind farm would have created what, 12 permanent minimum wage jobs for 12 local people. At the expense of east river mountain and it's wildlife, devalued property for a lot of people, our wildlife, birds and mammals.

A lot of people live here because of the beauty of the mountains, and if you really don't consider geography that much, it's just not beautiful because it's home, but tazewell county is 1 of the most geographically unique set of mountain formations in the east.

Sell out to the power company for that?

G man was 100% correct, the power they generate (windmills are 30% productive at best) doesn't go to this area anyhow, it goes to a storage bank to supplement that, ( a drop in the bucket of power in that bank at that) that bigger cities along the east coast draw from. It's not any different than that aep powerline they built through this region that supplies power to nc.

Lastly consider this, most people here realize the global warming or global climate change fad is propaganda, what do you think all this green energy agenda is associated with?

If they doubled all the solar, wind intake they could in the u.s. at best it could supply 12% of what this country has to have. At best 12%. "It simply isn't a realistic alternative."

wind farming has been abandoned all over europe because it wasn't effective.

Oh the windmills are still there, they're just abandoned and unused for years.

The people who back wind and solar power are the people who push to have coal mines shut down. For goodness sake, that should be all that has to be said there.

I even had a woman I was talking to about them in bland county, (she was for them) say "shouldn't we do our share here". I realized I was wasting my time talking to her if she really thought that. For goodness sake wv itself, without the numbers of va or ky, has had over 100,000 coal mining related deaths producing energy for this country throughout the decades. Hasn't this region done more than enough without selling out our mountain tops at their expense to some greedy power companies?

[jeffro 30]

nicely stated buzz

[buzzsawBeaver 12]

"Back to the main point: we are sitting on a freaking gold mine of renewable wind energy in SWVA. It would be THE ticket to getting SWVA back on the right track to growth and prosperity"

 

Explain how.

 

Realistically, they blast the mountain tops, build windmills, the work is done, they leave. 12 or less people have minimum wage jobs with the windfarm, property below east river mountain or anywhere else windmills are is devalued, (that's not prosperity, it decreases property tax values at that), where's the growth or prosperity? The small amount of energy it produces goes to a storage bank that bigger cities draw from.

Since when did bigger population centers ever pass up a goldmine in the energy business? They could put a million windmills up and down the east coast and draw from a much more powerful and consistent wind source off the atlantic coast.

You might want to ask yourself why these people don't want them in their backyards, especially if they're so profitable.

The fact is profitable or not, the companies are going to get 10s of millions in credits just for a certain small amount of green energy exploration. It doesn't matter if a windmill blade ever turns or not they've made 10s of millions. They could care less about this county or area.

If these things were such a goldmine the politicians of this state would be pushing them for their biggest voting bases and doing this big favor for millions in eastern va with their much better wind source, not tazewell county.

[buzzsawBeaver 12]

nicely stated buzz

 

I'm very passionate about it, but just telling it like it is none the less.

[Lance 228]

But they couldn't...AEP and BP/Dominion are separate entities and it would probably ended up costing us more for electricity since AEP would have had to "buy" the power generated by BP/Dominion...they would have passed that cost on to us with another rate hike...see what I'm saying???

 

yeah understand...but, maybe they could have included something that a % of whatever money is generated goes in to some sort of fund to benefit the people of the County...donate to a food bank or something...heck anything...it's time that people on the street started getting the kickbacks instead of the board members, contractors, or whoever...

[buzzsawBeaver 12]

The thing about it though is the real profit for these companies from these windfarms is not in their use or actual production, it's what they get from the government for their exploration of alternative sources of green energy. The fact is they probably don't really even have something smaller to throw the people's way like so with these windfarms..

[Deleted Account 5,203]

Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. This wasn't an opportunity for anyone but the people in the power business, at the people of tazewell counties expense. This wind farm would have created what, 12 permanent minimum wage jobs for 12 local people. At the expense of east river mountain and it's wildlife, devalued property for a lot of people, our wildlife, birds and mammals.

A lot of people live here because of the beauty of the mountains, and if you really don't consider geography that much, it's just not beautiful because it's home, but tazewell county is 1 of the most geographically unique set of mountain formations in the east.

Sell out to the power company for that?

G man was 100% correct, the power they generate (windmills are 30% productive at best) doesn't go to this area anyhow, it goes to a storage bank to supplement that, ( a drop in the bucket of power in that bank at that) that bigger cities along the east coast draw from. It's not any different than that aep powerline they built through this region that supplies power to nc.

Lastly consider this, most people here realize the global warming or global climate change fad is propaganda, what do you think all this green energy agenda is associated with?

If they doubled all the solar, wind intake they could in the u.s. at best it could supply 12% of what this country has to have. At best 12%. "It simply isn't a realistic alternative."

wind farming has been abandoned all over europe because it wasn't effective.

Oh the windmills are still there, they're just abandoned and unused for years.

The people who back wind and solar power are the people who push to have coal mines shut down. For goodness sake, that should be all that has to be said there.

I even had a woman I was talking to about them in bland county, (she was for them) say "shouldn't we do our share here". I realized I was wasting my time talking to her if she really thought that. For goodness sake wv itself, without the numbers of va or ky, has had over 100,000 coal mining related deaths producing energy for this country throughout the decades. Hasn't this region done more than enough without selling out our mountain tops at their expense to some greedy power companies?

 

Several things.

 

1. People AREN'T living here because of the area's "scenic beauty". They're leaving in freaking droves, man, because there's no industry here to sustain anything! WV is one of only two states to LOSE population in the last 20 years, along with the great state of North Dakota. The VA side of the line isn't much better, and school consolidations/dropping enrollment are secondary signs of this. Let's get real, here: the scenic beauty isn't bringing in a darned soul. Money talks. Industry talks.

 

2. Give me some evidence about how the windmills will harm East River Mountain's delicate ecosystem. So far, the only evidence I've seen is weak, at the very best. So what if we have to log a few trees to install the lines? Get some trees from an arboreum and plant new ones! You concerned about blasting atop the mountain? Write a provision into the contract about mountaintop renewal! The EPA also has its own guidelines about such activities. Just like most environmental problems, this too is overblown.

 

3. Wind power, even at 30% effectiveness, is constantly renewable. Once you burn coal, it's gone, baby. Give me 30% of a renewable resource over 100% of a non-renewable resource, every single time. And your ad hominem attacks against people who advocate in favor of renewable energy just weaken your argument even further.

 

4. So what if it creates just 12 jobs (and such jobs pay about triple minimum wage, TBQH). That's 12 more than we'd have had were we to exclude BP/Dominion (assuming that it is indeed "just" 12 jobs, when in fact it's more). Personally, I'd be tickled enough at the $10M that's pumped into a local economy that needs it severely.

 

Again, come on. I'm begging for a better reason than "it makes the mountainsides ugly". I've given enough argument to beg a better response than this.

Edited February 4, 2010 by UVAObserver

[Blues Man 48]

I bet the wind mills are not as bad looking as all the gas wells, roads, Gates, and big trucks that run the road all the time where I live at on the western end of the county. Nobody seemed to care about all the mess that the wells leave on the mountains from being installed and still being installed but some one wonts to put up some wind mills on their own property and its a crime.

[GMan 3,569]

I bet the wind mills are not as bad looking as all the gas wells, roads, Gates, and big trucks that run the road all the time where I live at on the western end of the county. Nobody seemed to care about all the mess that the wells leave on the mountains from being installed and still being installed but some one wonts to put up some wind mills on their own property and its a crime.

 

I really don't think you all fully understand how ginormous these windmills really are...then putting them on top of East River Mountain...you could see these things for miles and miles...a real eyesore for anyone within viewing distance of the mountain.

 

Personally, I've never seen a gas well anywhere...out of sight, out of mind...I guess...but I don't have those or want those in my backyard either...

[mrb 26]

Has anyone seen what mountain top minning looks like? The cell and radio towers have already ruined the looks of that mountain. Nail on the head UVAObserver.

[Blues Man 48]

I really don't think you all fully understand how ginormous these windmills really are...then putting them on top of East River Mountain...you could see these things for miles and miles...a real eyesore for anyone within viewing distance of the mountain.

 

Personally, I've never seen a gas well anywhere...out of sight, out of mind...I guess...but I don't have those or want those in my backyard either...

 

You can't trun around with out seeing one up hear anymore. I only own 2 acrs. and it seems like every week I get pappers telling me that they are going to put another some where in the area. Not on the 2 arcs. but somewhere close.

Edited February 4, 2010 by Blues Man