“I think they’re going to fold,” District 3 County Commissioner Bobby Ziegler said at Monday’s weekly commissioners’ meeting.
Perhaps it was wishful thinking as he reacted to the fact that a TransAltas Corporation representative failed to show up to meet with the commissioners and the public last week.
Ziegler had announced at a special meeting on Nov. 14 that he had been contacted by the Canadian-based company and told that they would send someone to the county to discuss wind turbines.
TransAltas has plans to build 121 wind turbines, some 720 feet tall, on 22,000 acres in rural western McIntosh County.
The plans have many area landowners and others in an uproar.
One group is circulating a petition to put to a vote of the people whether to place a moratorium on the project until further study is done.
Anti-wind turbine activists have asked the county commissioners to create a county zoning commission.
The commissioners were prepared to do that but were informed by Assistant District Attorney Greg Stidham that state law prevents the commissioners from enacting any law affecting private property.
He said it will be up to private citizens to start a petition asking that a county zoning commission be created.
If sufficient signatures are obtained for the initiative petition, voters will decide the issue.
Craig County in northeastern Oklahoma circulated a petition recently seeking to create a county zoning commission, but it failed.
Telling people what they can and can’t do with their private property is a hard sell in Oklahoma.
One Eufaula resident said if he owned land where the wind turbines are going to be built, he wouldn’t hesitate to sign an agreement to allow them to be put on his land.
“No one is going to tell me what to do with my property,” he said.
It may be that folks may be asked to sign two petitions in the future, one about zoning and one about a moratorium.
Maybe more petitions. Stidham said nothing is preventing people who oppose moratoriums and zoning to circulate their own petitions.
“You could have competing questions on the same ballot,” Stidham said.
Stidham said he opposes the wind turbines and agrees with what the opponents of the turbines are saying, but he can’t advise the commissioners to take any action that is against state law.
The fight to curtail wind turbines in Oklahoma, which has the third largest number of the alternative power source, is spreading.
Anti-turbine forces have gathered in increasingly large numbers in McIntosh County at several meetings in the past six weeks.
A public meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 12 at the Creek County Fairgrounds near Sapulpa.
A rally will be held at the Capitol from 9:30 a.m. to noon on Tuesday, Jan. 7, organized by The Freedom Brigade, a conservative political organization that began in Oklahoma in 2020 and has spread nationwide.
The Brigade opposes not only wind turbines but also solar power and any other “green energy” that may have a negative impact on Oklahoma.
Among speakers scheduled for the Jan. 7 event are State Rep. Neil Hays of Checotah and Craig County resident John Spence who spoke at a recent McIntosh County Republican Party meeting at the VFW.
According to the U.S. Wind Turbine Database, Oklahoma currently has 5,527 wind turbines, compared to California’s 5,509 and Iowa’s 6,481.
But the state lags far behind Texas, which has more than 19,000 active wind turbines.
Opponents have expressed opposition based on many issues, including the potential negative impact on humans, animals and water.
Opponents claim TransAltas has failed to file an Environmental Impact Study, which is required by the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969.
Several local residents, headed by former environmental impact professional Derek Liles, have volunteered to do their own study and turn the results over to the company, to the various levels of governments and to the public.
Anti-wind turbine activists claim the real purpose of the corporations building the towers that are hundreds of feet tall is to obtain money through tax rebates from the federal government.
And, they say the federal government is using the wind turbines to gain control of private property through eminent domain.
“Once a permit is issued (to the wind turbine company), then a court has to allow the exercise of eminent domain,” according to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
Creek County rancher Mandie McCord told 2NEWS Oklahoma she fears infrastructure plans from the US Department of Energy could pave the way for a National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor that would cross northern Oklahoma with power lines.
It could potentially cross her ranch.
The Federal Power Act authorizes the Secretary of Energy to designate any geographic area as a National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor (NIETC) “if the Secretary finds that consumers are harmed by a lack of transmission in the area and that the development of new transmission would advance important national interests in that area, such as increased reliability and reduced consumer costs.”
The proposed corridor across Oklahoma is 645 miles long, starting in the Panhandle, and 4 to 18 miles wide and goes into Arkansas.
McIntosh County resident Susan Williams, who is retired and lives in the Enchanted Oaks area, fears eminent domain almost as much as she does the myriad of problems she foresees being created by the 121 wind turbines on the verge of being erected on the western side of the county.
The turbines will be on 22,000 acres, and create power that needs a way to be transmitted to other areas, thus the corridors.
After she retired, she and her husband Cecil left Texas two years ago and bought some lots near the lake at Enchanted Oaks.
They are afraid their land will be taken by the government through eminent domain.
Susan is a former science teacher who has been studying the wind turbines ever since she learned two months ago about plans to build 121 in McIntosh County and she says she has learned the turbines are a health hazard, even to the extent of causing birth defects in humans and animals.
