filed: December 21, 2011 • Arizona, Letters

Wind farm is a temporary boost

Credit: Williams News, www.williamsnews.com 20 December 2011 ~~

The wind farm is a temporary boost for Williams but permanent eyesore for residents bordering the complex.

It is easy for the Mayor to praise the benefits that Williams has recognized from Perrin Ranch Project since he doesn’t have them in his backyard to look at every day (out of sight out of mind). This is much like the position the County Board of Supervisors have taken.

The problem is, that this boost will be short lived when the project is finished shortly and the developer pulls out leaving (all of us) with the aftermath of what was approved and installed with little thought of what it will or won’t do.

Since the Department of Energy wind maps indicate that the wind in the area of this project doesn’t rate enough wind to make this a workable site for a wind farm, it will require a lot of APS generated wind power when the wind is not blowing. Guess who will be given the extra power bill? That’s right, the consumer (all of us will be paying higher utility bills for a project that should never have been approved for an area unfit to produce enough energy on it’s own without back up power).

Another potential problem is, if Williams enters into a long term agreement for the annual thousands of gallons of water needed for the project to keep the turbines cleaned regularly as required, and we should again enter some drought years and can’t comply with the needs of such a contract, who will get burned? Nextera or the people?

Hindsight is still 20/20 I would recommend the merchants of Williams to remind the Mayor that we outsiders are very much a part of this town as we do a lot of our business here, when the tourist season ends each year.

In the end it’s always good to know all the facts before praising anything.

Carma Lee

Williams

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