Rail Tie opposition continues

Opponents are planning a protest at 11 a.m., Monday at the Albany County Courthouse in advance of a meeting of the Board of Commissioners Tuesday morning. Commissioners are scheduled to consider updates to the county’s commercial wind energy siting regulations during that meeting.

A group called Albany County for Smart Energy Development plans to submit a petition to the commissioners asking that the regulations include a five-mile buffer between such projects and national forests, state parks, wildlife preserves, national or state monuments and national or state scenic byways.

Paul Montoya, a member of the group, said the petition was started a few weeks ago and has collected several hundred signatures. The group is seeking signatures only from Albany County residents. The petition is available online at acsed.org/petition.

Current regulations call for quarter-mile setbacks from state parks and wildlife refuges and can be modified at the discretion of the commissioners.

Last fall, the group started a different petition asking for the county to amend its current wind regulations with an eye on protecting the county’s natural resources and quality of life. They submitted it to the commission in September when it had about 1,200 signatures. About 40 percent of the signees were from outside southeast Wyoming. Group member Miria White said that petition now has almost 3,000 signatures.

Meanwhile, Albany County for Smart Energy Development has also filed an appeal in Second Judicial District Court seeking to reverse a decision by the State Board of Land Commissioners to lease 4,800 acres of School Trust Land to ConnectGen. The board denied the lease in November before issuing the approval in January.

“The court could ask them to go back and review the decision under different guidelines,” Montoya said Wednesday.

White said her home would be within a mile of three Rail Tie turbines, making her one of the closest residents to the project.

“I really believe in my heart of hearts that we will not be able to live there — that we will have to abandon the house if these go in,” she said.

County regulations require turbines to be set back 5.5 times the tower height from residential dwellings and platted subdivisions, and 1.1 times the tower height from adjacent property lines.

The project proposes V150-4.2 turbines manufactured by Vestas Wind Systems, which are 590.5 feet tall at the tip of the blade. Thus, a turbine could be as close as 3,247 feet to a home.

Tony Kirchhoefer, who lives in the Vedauwoo area, said the area attracts residents who enjoy rural life near a small town. A large commercial wind development would ruin that asset, he said.

The Rail Tie Project area is within five miles of 357 residential parcels. Wind farms in remote locations, such as the Sierra Madre, Seven Mile Hill and Boswell Springs projects, have far fewer residential neighbors. Wind farms in populated parts of Wyoming, like the Roundhouse, Happy Jack, Chokecherry and Silver Sage projects, have more nearby residential parcels.

The 26,000-acre project area has been designated as Priority Growth Area 4 according to Albany County’s Comprehensive Plan. The designation applies to the county’s least-populated areas and describes places that are remote, with few roads and few public services. Adding public services in order to encourage growth in these areas would be expensive relative to other growth areas, the plan states.

These areas are often used for agriculture, with some low-density residential use. According to the plan, “conservation and protection of agricultural operations, wildlife habitat and sensitive lands is a high priority.”