Columbia Energy Partners

Baker City Herald: “Steens Mountain: A backyard with room for wind turbines.”

Posted on 19. Feb, 2010 by crowley in Blog, General

There’s an editorial in the Baker City Herald today: “Steens Mountain: A backyard with room for wind turbines.”

In it, Jayson Jacoby offers the perspective of someone who travels to the Steens “as often as I can manage” and obviously loves the place. But he can imagine wind turbines there, too, because “What we need, I believe, is the courage to concede that compromises are necessary.”

Mr. Jacoby also sees the project in perspective:

“But set against a scene like the Steens they (turbines) are rendered mere playthings, steel toys in a gigantic playground of basalt and sage and sky.”

He has obviously looked at maps and thought about how the project will impact the landscape:

“I’d be incensed too if anybody proposed lining the Steens Loop Road with turbines, or stringing a picket line of towers across the alpine tundra of the summit rim or through the Alvord Desert.

“But no one has suggested doing that.

“So far the wind farm sites are all north of the Loop Road, which also means they’re north of the highest — and in my estimation the prettiest — part of the 50-mile-long fault-block mountain.

“Which is not to say the wind farms will be invisible, or even inconspicuous.

“It’s pretty difficult to hide dozens of 415-foot towers, even in country that sprawls as magnificently as the Steens.

“Trouble is, it’s also a challenge to make electricity from wind in a place that’s not, you know, windy.”

He adds a welcome note:

“I doubt, at any rate, that Columbia Energy Partners chose the north slopes of the Steens because they wanted to annoy as many people as possible.”

Mr. Jacoby writes about compromises and the need to realistically consider what it takes to make renewable energy work.

“If weaning ourselves from petroleum and coal requires that we build wind turbines — and I think we must — then we ought to build them where the wind blows hard and long.

“I go to the Steens country as often as I can manage, and I intend to keep doing so.

“Someday, perhaps, I’ll climb the gentle western slopes toward the distinctive notch in Kiger Gorge’s glacial headwall, driving a rig that burns electrons instead of unleaded.

“That will be a fine day, and a fine feeling to know I’m doing nothing to foul the pure air of the high places.

“I will look to the north and maybe I will see the vanes of a turbine, turning lazily, doing their good work.

“Wind farms are important, in that way.

“But set against a scene like the Steens they are rendered mere playthings, steel toys in a gigantic playground of basalt and sage and sky.

“A place that is no one’s backyard.

“And everyone’s.

Although no one at Columbia Energy Partners has ever spoken with Mr. Jacoby, we share his love of the Steens, and his belief that responsibly developed renewable energy projects have a place there.