e
But Mr. Boone says that
wind supporters are the ones pursuing their own agenda at the expense of the
"I'm not sure that
wind turbines in this region will significantly reduce the outcome of global
climate change or actually have any role," Mr. Boone said. "The very
limited benefit doesn't justify the risk of wiping out a lot of interior forest
leaders reject this argument.
"There's no free
lunch," said Paul Hansen, executive director of the Izaak Walton
League of America, a venerable sportsmen's group. " 'Not in my
backyard' is not environmentalism."
The Alleghenies are a big
backyard, with views that are both spectacular and problematic. Flowering
shrubs like shadbush and preening flowers like trillium are framed by oaks,
maples and longleaf pines. But intermittent industrial tree farming has
repeatedly denuded some mountainsides. On both sides of the border near here in
far western Maryland, second-home development is booming. The air has often
been fouled by the Mount Storm coal-fired power plant.
If Ned Power,
a wind-energy development company, puts up 100 or so turbines along 14 miles of
ridgeline near Mount Storm, wind-energy supporters say, how much does that
further spoil the landscape?
Kevin Rackstraw, a regional
manager of Clipper Windpower whose proposed 40-turbine project
in western Maryland has drawn Mr. Boone's fire, said opponents lacked perspective.
"Dan looks at all the
impacts of a given wind project," Mr. Rackstraw said, "but doesn't
say: 'If we didn't have wind, what would we have?' Coal. Think of the impact of
acid rain and mountaintop removal."
The Ned Power project is
just one target of Mr. Boone, 49, a former state wildlife biologist who now
works as a consultant. In interviews, he said he first focused on the issue
when working as a botanist on a study related to an early wind power project.
The environmental-impact statements, he said, were grossly inadequate.
Now he drives from Highland
County in western Virginia (where 38 turbines are proposed on Tamarack Ridge)
to Bedford, Pa. (where early discussions of an unnamed project are under way)
to talk to local groups or crystallize their objections for them. In Annapolis,
Md., and Charleston, W.Va., he uses state utility regulators' licensing
hearings to throw up roadblocks before wind projects. He is eager to argue with
industry officials in any venue, questioning their facts, assumptions and
"The rush is on now
because a lot of the places they've targeted have no zoning, and it's easy to
get in that kind of large-scale development," he said. "This part of
the country has really good energy prices. Developers are keying in on that."
Mr. Boone's quiver of
anti-wind arguments includes economic analyses, but his first line of attack is
biological: he contends that they are a threat to bats and potentially to
migratory birds and that they break up forest habitat.
Scores of raptors and other
birds were killed by the first generation of wind turbines set up at Altamont
Pass in Northern California. Since the Altamont Pass turbines were erected in
the early 1980's, turbine design has been altered, and most subsequent studies
have shown that birds tend to fly above the height of most turbines though some
experts say more studies are needed.
But the turbines south of
here in Thomas, W.Va., have been lethal to bats. More than 2,000 were killed in
2003 at the Mountaineer project, whose 44 turbines are owned by FPL Energy, a
big power company that is the wind industry's dominant player.
Industry officials agree
that the bat mortality measured at the Mountaineer site is unacceptable, and
they are studying the benefits of deterrent devices and the best ways to modify
turbine operations in bat-rich areas.
To Mr. Boone, wind energy
will never make a big enough difference to justify its impact in the region.
"You have to remember that these tax advantages are so huge," he
said, "that these developers are keen to latch onto all the mythology
whether it's global warming or something else."
Asked if he thought global
warming was a myth, he said: "No, I'm not calling