For the first time in decades, the dirt road to this camp was graded last week.  We believe in response to the accusations thrown by Mr. Saffer Highland New Wind.  When Mr. Saffer was asked about the last time the road to the camp was graded, he did not answer.

Action does speak louder than words.  Or maybe the lack of words.  When you search the Pocahontas County web site for Camp Allegheny, there is no reference to the camp in the search engine results.  However, you can choose a friendly hotel or camp ground from your inquiry.  The only place we could find that referenced Camp Allegheny was two sentences in a section on the Civil War Heritage of Pocahontas County.  How important was Camp Allegheny to the county before this crusade by Mr. Saffer?  Doesn’t look like it was an important tourist and economic importance to the county otherwise the county would have written about it on the web site.

Virginia Wind finds it amazing that a Civil War camp that is the center of this battle and to which Mr. Saffer has launched his crusade against the McBride family is not even important enough to merit more than two sentences on the Pocahontas County web site.

http://www.pocahontascountywv.com/heritage.aspx

http://www.pocahontascountywv.com/home.aspx

The person who photographed these picturestrespassed on private property to shoot what looks like a telephoto view of the Highland New Wind Project.  Someone then placed large arrows where the wind turbines will be sited.

The most disturbing thing about Mr. Saffer and his crusade is his complete lack of transparency in answering questions.  His forum has become a bully pulpit for him to rail with his diatribe against the McBrides, painting them as this evil corporation, when in fact, Mr. McBride is a rancher who has owned this land since the fifties and his children who are trying to create a renewable energy source for Virginians.

Commissioner Saffer is an attorney and represents the citizens of Pochantas County, West Virginia.

I wonder how many citizens of Pocohantas County are concerned about how his tying this fight against a small Virginia corporation is taking Mr. Saffer’s focus away from the pressing needs of the county he was elected to represent.  His forum claims to be an active meeting place for Pocohantas county citizens, but is in fact, a very one-sided long-winded conversation from Mr. Saffer on what he feels is best.  Not many people in Pocohantas county have contributed to his conversations.

My gut feeling is that many of them do not agree with Mr. Saffer’s views and in the best West Virginia and Southern tradition are being polite to him and not saying anything rather than become confrontational.

Mr. Saffer, of course, has the right to his views.  I only hope that he is using his fight for the good of Pocohantas County rather than a personal agenda.

http://www.martinsaffer.com/Pocahontas_County_Forum/False_Choices_and_Begging_the_Question

The Commissioner is making emotional comments and pleas and he is refuted with facts and questions.

More absurd allegations that the Highland New Wind project in Virginia is a threat to a small civil war camp in West Virginia.  Skip past the emotional arguments and read the last several comments by Mr. Davidson, who is calm and rational.  Commissioner Saffer throws some emotionally  laden sound bites into the mix without answering the questions.

http://www.martinsaffer.com/Pocahontas_County_Forum/False_Choices_and_Begging_the_Question

Please register at his site and comment on this issue.

A very funny wind commercial.

More interesting than reading the wind bags in the Roanoke newspaper and the Highland Recorder drone on about the big bad industrial wind power that will destroy everything in its sight.  Chasing shadows in the dark.

Article written by Laurence Hammack in the Roanoke Times about the Highland New Wind  project and the “threat” to the Camp Allegheny Battlefield.

Two things come to mind after reading this piece.

1.  Why did the writer not interview the McBrides?

2. The writer did not disclose that the to see the turbines from the Camp, one must trespass on private property to see where the turbines will be placed and that the only legal observation of the battlefield is from the parking area which looks away from the turbines and is two miles down a rutted dirt road  that transverses a heavily forested woodland.

We intend for this blog to become the clearing house for information about Wind Power and its potential.  We appreciate all points of view.  We expect courtesy and civility.

Thank you.

Virginia Wind

A coalition of concerned Virginians from across the commonwealth.

Wind Power offers us the possibility to decrease our reliance upon coal, nuclear and oil fired power generators.

We believe that every citizen of the Commonwealth can contribute to reducing energy usage by making a few simple changes in how they use electricity.

We are deeply concerned that a small group of anti-wind activists in Virginia and West Virginia have portrayed a family who are creating a wind farm in the Highland County as an evil industrial corporation.  This is not true.  These activists have claimed that this family has destroyed a forest and have exploited loopholes to build a wind farm that will destroy a Civil War battlefield.  This is also not true. The reality is, the wind farm is being constructed in two cow pastures.  There are 19 turbines planned for this site.  Five of them are near trees.  The remainder  will sit in open pasture.  Google Earth shows the ridges and hills as open fields not heavily forested as the activists claim.  The activists claim that the Highland New Wind project will destroy the viewshed of Camp Allegheny, a small Civil War battlefield located in Pochahantas County, West Virginia.  This is not true.

Posts on this blog will be truthful and present a reasoned argument for the increase of  windpower within Virginia.  We will examine each of the arguments presented by the people who oppose wind power in Virginia with reason and truth.

Unlike the activists who oppose wind in Virginia, we will not make personal attacks upon individuals.

We hope that by reading these posts and researching the links provided that the reader can reach their own conclusion on wind power within the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Thank you.