Turbines fan debate over wind energy
In a blustery stretch of desert two hours east of Los Angeles, where many of the world's first power-producing windmills were built, a plan for more turbines has triggered a backlash that echoes a national debate over the merits of wind energy.
A proposal to build about 50 windmills next to Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument has aroused passions in a region already dotted with 3,000 windmills, with opponents charging that the wind energy industry has neither delivered the promised power nor spared the environment.
The industry, which was born in California, now has projects in 40 states and $8 billion in investments over the last two years, according to the American Wind Energy Assn.
Supporters say wind power has come of age and will help slow global warming, while critics contend that it has delivered only a quarter of its promised energy, proved lethal to wildlife and, in the view of many residents, blighted the landscape.
Around the country, Internet blogs and anti-wind energy websites hum with angry postings about projects on picturesque ridgelines, seascapes and farmlands from New England to Texas.
Politicians and celebrities have weighed in. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and his Nantucket Island neighbors have so far successfully fought installation of offshore turbines.
Their opposition, in turn, has prompted criticism that rich liberals are all for alternative power providing it doesn't mar their views.
In his San Gorgonio Pass community above the 10 Freeway, homeowner Les Starks has led the local opposition.
"They're going to take a national monument
"They want to bulldoze that mesa, put in these enormous wind turbines
Steve Christensen, owner of the mesa where the windmills would be erected, said all he wants to do is produce clean electricity in a region already dotted with windmills.
"We've got windmills to the north of us, windmills to the east and west of us, windmills everywhere but to the south," he said. "Why are they picking us out?"
Christensen, a civil engineer from Cypress, Texas, said his father bought the land half a century before Congress designated the surrounding slopes as a national monument. He said residential or commercial development on the squall-scoured mesa would be impossible.
"If you had a house or car or anything on there it would literally strip the paint off," he said.
