I am dumbfounded by the reaction in and around Erath County to the prospect of a potential wind farm development between Lingleville and Gorman. My family's ranch is out there and I spent a lot of time there growing up. I can tell you that ranching is a very iffy prospect, a dry year can spell financial woes, three. ruin. Back in high school I remember that the land was leased for gas exploration, the checks were cashed but no well was ever drilled. Oil and gas has been in production for 40 years to the north, but just them cows munching grass in the back pasture at the old home place.
There is a local website out there (Erath County) blasting the idea of wind turbines, but no mention of gas wells. I would love to get into one of the meetings this group holds and raise the issues of explosions, fires, chemical spills, pipeline ROW wars, the smell, the noise, I could go on. In that particular neck of the woods I personally feel that wind turbines could ADD to the aesthetic appeal of the landscape. Don't get me wrong. I love the land, but the economic reality is that it is hard to make the land produce, and the beauty there is at a micro level as compared to macro (i.e. wildflowers, individual woods as compared to canyons or mountains). I saw an unscientific survey recently of residents in and around Granbury/Glen Rose saying they would welcome expansion of the nuclear facility there to maybe three or four units. Given all the noise about energy today, I think wind turbines are not a bad option to have for a neighbor. Cows, or grapes for that matter, can live under and between the units, the actual footprint is considerably smaller that a coal or nuclear plant, and hydroelectric is out of the question since there is no water. I first saw a wind turbine farm on Lanzarote several years ago, and thought it was beautiful. Perhaps I didn't realize then that some of the beauty may have been in that I could SEE the turbines from a considerable distance since there was no smoke produced along with the electrical power. Hmmm. Rambling RD _____ From: Louise Power [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, June 23, 2008 4:02 PM To: [email protected]; 'Don Cooper' Cc: [email protected]; 'Fritz Holt'; [email protected] Subject: RE: [ot_caving] an option to drilling I'm sorry, I mis-spoke. It is the power companies funding these. Here's the info. It was on CBS Sunday Morning: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/12/02/sunday/main3563344.shtml Sorry for the confusion. Louise _____ From: [email protected] To: [email protected]; [email protected] CC: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] Subject: RE: [ot_caving] an option to drilling List-Post: [email protected] Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2008 15:38:46 -0500 _____ From: Louise Power [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, June 23, 2008 11:05 AM To: Don Cooper Cc: [email protected]; Fritz Holt; [email protected] Subject: RE: [ot_caving] an option to drilling "Heard a couple of interesting stories on the news this weekend and this morning. One was on the wind farms in West Texas. Apparently a lot of ranchers are leasing their land to the government for wind farms to supplement the $$ lost in the foundering cattle business. They also interviewed one rancher who was opposed to installing the wind machines saying that the ranchers who took advantage of the opportunity were not being considerate to their neighbors when they allowed the government to erect hundreds and hundreds of wind machines as far as they eye could see." Did the news REALLY say that the ranchers are leasing their land to the GOVERNMENT for use as wind farms? Itwould be news to me that the government is in the wind farm business.
