Appeal to Kittitas Commissioners
June 15, 2010Dear Kittitas County Commissioners:
“With abundant wind resources…Kittitas County is ideally suited for a Renewable Energy Innovation Partnership Zone. The effort and vision for achieving these goals… represents a new era of collaboration among government and private industry leaders and organizations in Kittitas County. Rather than resist change, we are choosing to embrace the development taking place in our region and leverage it for the benefit of all citizens by assisting in ways that sustain these industries into the future and create job opportunities. The current environment of governmental support and mandates for resource-based energy production, significant local investment by related industry developers, continuous technological improvements that are creating new opportunities and new local leadership on several levels have created this opportunity for cooperation and synergy among organizations.”
The above quote is taken from Mr. Jewell’s introduction to Kittitas County’s IPZ designation application, and is only one of dozens of quotes in the same vein from the application, news stories, and interviews.
Thus the recent failure of the Community Wind Energy System (CWES) Ordinance, an ordinance that would allow the development of community wind turbines on private land, has left us dumbfounded.
The IPZ Designation, awarded late last year, clearly states that renewable energy development is a goal of Kittitas County. Do we incorrectly perceive an inconsistency between the County first seeking this IPZ designation and then blocking the first attempt to “leverage” this “abundant wind resource” “for the benefit of all citizens”? Why has Kittitas County turned away the first company to approach it to partner and innovate in renewable energy development by denying any permitting process?
And why, especially during this time of government budget cuts, did Kittitas County staff work for an entire year on a proposed ordinance that not one commissioner voted for, when the goal of the task force was to craft a compromise ordinance that everyone could live with?
Now, with the failure of the CWES ordinance, there is no path by which an individual landowner can economically harvest the wind on their land. This leaves as their only recourse the state permitting process for distributed projects that is currently on its way through the legislature. Large wind companies have a path to developing the wind resource in Kittitas County; the local community deserves one as well.
Your stated reasons for failing to pass the CWES ordinance center around not fully understanding the impact of wind turbines on views, property values and the environment, and wanting to wait and see what impacts will come from the KV Wind Power Project and Desert Claim. The minimal impacts of wind turbines are well documented from the multitude of wind projects already in existence around the globe, and authoritative reports of their impacts were submitted with the proposed CWES ordinance. This is not new technology; no new surprise impacts will be discovered with KVWPP and Desert Claim.
Another concern expressed was about preserving the existing views. Are they of more value than resource lands? Resource lands, where community wind projects would be developed, need to remain available for resource-based uses, and wind is another resource that farmers desire to harvest for additional income and the patriotic virtue of helping the state and the nation produce its own power. Just as farmers and ranchers have had to accept residential encroachment, people living in windy resource lands will need to accept wind turbines, along with barns and grain silos, as symbols of a productive rural landscape.
These and many other issues were hashed through in the development of the CWES ordinance. Advocates on the task force made many compromises in setbacks and restrictions to accommodate these concerns.
The State of Washington mandates that 15% of our energy needs must come from renewable sources by the year 2015. Kittitas County is a windy place, and that wind is valuable. Community-owned turbines connecting directly to the distribution lines for local consumption are a great way to keep that value local, providing five times more stimulus to the local economy per MW than corporate-owned developments.
The State has already shown that the County does not have the right to unreasonably restrict the development of its wind resource. By failing to pass the CWES ordinance, the County, rather than taking leadership and putting the development of its wind resource in the hands of its citizens, has defaulted to the State to dictate the process by which wind is developed, and by whom, in Kittitas County.
Kittitas County has repeatedly stated that it is keenly interested in diversifying its economic base to include renewable energy. The failure of the Community Wind Energy Systems Ordinance is an action by the Board of County Commissioners that speaks much louder than any of their stated intentions. The landowners of Kittitas County who hope to harvest the wind flowing over their land would prefer a local permitting process, but are prepared to appeal to the State to give them the same access to wind energy the large wind farms enjoy.
Therefore we make a final appeal to the BOCC to support your entire community through the transition to a modern rural economy that includes energy generation. Please put the power of the wind in your citizens’ hands by reconsidering the CWES Ordinance.
Respectfully,
Terrance Meyer, P.E.
Cascade Community Wind Company LLC
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