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Texans Join Forces To Fight Wind Turbines
Some Texans are joining forces to try to head off construction of towering wind turbines.
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45 Comments 
(August 16, 2008)--A couple that bought 350 acres in rural Erath County to raise horses and enjoy the breathtaking sunsets have a different view that what they imagined.
Johnny and Tesa Whitley now look out over two-dozen towering wind turbines.
The 400-foot-tall turbines tower over trees atop ridges, some just a mile away.
Some residents in several nearby towns, about 100 miles southwest of Dallas, are fighting to make sure the same thing doesn't happen to them.
A spokesman told The Associated Press that FPL Energy has not decided whether to proceed with the project in Morgan Mill and Huckabay.
Steve Stengel says officials are still studying the area's wind and transmission lines and talking to landowners.
Stengel declined to discuss the company's lease terms and said people are required to sign confidentiality agreements because information in the contracts is proprietary.
The Public Utility Commission has given preliminary approval to a plan plan to build transmission lines to carry wind-generated electricity from West Texas.
Billionaire Dallas oilman T. Boone Pickens recently unveiled a project to erect wind turbines across the Midwest.
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Latest Comments
I am trying to find out to get these wind turbines in our area. We are trying to make a living with drought one year floods the next, prices of everything going up. The city folks that are whining about the view while claiming to be "green and conserve energy" when they are in the city with friends.I have seen them in mass in west tx. It actually is an awesome site. I've seen pictures and it kind of looks like art. If it will help our economy, make it a financially good deal for the land owners to make it worth our while I say bring them on.
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Reality Check, wow, you're getting way off here lately. A residental 30 ft wind power turbine will run you about $40,000 for full installation and that's without the diesel generator to power it when there is no wind. How is that charging the power company??? These ranchers are "leasing" the land for the industrial 400 ft. turbines to the energy companies and you have to have ALOT of windy land for the energy companies to even consider it profitable to lease and erect them. It's always ok until it's in your backyard. Just look at Salado, the whole town is fighting Oncor for just powers lines going through the town. Yes, we need alternative energy sources. But, if you read T. Boone Pickens whole plan, he does want to turn our agricultural heartland into wind farms because he says it's there's more wind there than any other place in the U.S. Can we survive without wheat and corn crops that feed America? I still say...put them in the gulf and offshore, it's always windy there....
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http://www.healthlink.org/windproscons37.html
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