It looks like Virginia soon will have its first commercial wind farm. The Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has approved plans to build 25 giant turbines on a ridgeline in Botetourt County.
Critical to the approval was an agreement by Charlottesville-based Apex Clean Energy to turn off turbines at its Rocky Forge site during warm, calm nights during the season when bats are most active. Foes of the project had focused on the risk that the 550-foot-tall turbines would pose to bats and birds.
Virginia will join 41 other states that have wind projects. The Rocky Forge project has run a regulatory gamut, winning approvals from Botetourt County and the Federal Aviation Administration as well as DEQ. Apex had to demonstrate that its turbines would not pose a threat to commercial aviation.
Apex CEO Mark Goodwin was up-beat. “Linked with competitive pricing and clear evidence that new clean energy generation attracts major corporate investment, Rocky Forge Wind is set to begin a new chapter in Virginia’s energy future.”
Reports the Roanoke Times:
To evaluate the wind farm’s impact on the environment, DEQ relied in large part on studies conducted for Apex by private firms, in consultation with state and federal agencies.
The data showed minimal harm to birds, noting that eagles and other types of birds most threatened by turbines were not seen in large numbers at the proposed wind farm site, a 7,000-acre parcel of unpopulated woodland on North Mountain that sits about 5 miles northeast of Eagle Rock.
The company will stop its turbines from sunset to sunrise from mid-May to mid-November every year, except when the wind is blowing faster than 15 mph or it is 38 degrees or colder on the mountain ridge. … Apex says it also will avoid cutting trees within 5 miles of the bats’ caves and within 150 feet of summer roosting trees for northern long-eared bats from early spring to fall.
In echoes of criticisms leveled against the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and Mountain Valley Pipeline, critics of the project asserted that DEQ’s streamlined administrative process, enacted in 2010, is too friendly to industry.
During construction, the wind farm is expected to produce about 150 jobs. Once the project is operational, it will be run by about a half-dozen employees on-site.
Apex officials have said earlier that the facility could pump as much as $4.5 million a year into the local economy, adding to the tax base and contributing to local sales and tourism spending.
Bacon’s bottom line: Concerns that wind turbines kill birds and bats has emerged as a big issue with many proposed wind farms in the Appalachian mountains. It will be interesting to see if Apex’s concession to shut down the turbines during periods of peak wildlife activity creates a precedent that eases the approval of other wind projects in Virginia.
Virginia’s on-land wind resources are limited, restricted mainly to mountain ridge lines near existing electric transmission lines. People have convinced themselves that wind turbines, like houses, cabins and condominiums, are an eyesore and hurt their property values. Apex shrewdly located Rocky Forge on an isolated ridge seen by few people, so opposition in Botetourt was limited. Whether the Rocky Forge success can be replicated anywhere else remains to be seen.
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