The July 19 guest column “Wind project merits Gregoire’s OK” is pure drivel. I am a landowner in Ellensburg in the area of the KVWPP and attended the July 17 hearings.
The article was co-written by Sara Patton, of the NW Energy Coalition. Her writing is a red herring and she writes in frustration because she attempted to front-load the public hearing with her “alleged” list of 900 signatures to support the wind farm project. Income and taxes are not the issue.
EFSEC Administrative Law Judge Adam Torem made it specific that the public meeting was to hear from local affected landowners on the setback effects of the project.
Patton overstepped her bounds and the judge admonished her to stick to the topic of setbacks of local landowners. She proceeded to push her agenda for renewable energy policy and was told to sit down if she had nothing to say about the issue of setbacks on the proposed project. She pushed that her “petition” be placed into the record.
Torem declined and again told her to stick to the topic of setbacks.
The guest column is her attempt to gain support from Seattle voters to support a project that has been rejected by the Kittitas County Planning Commission, the Kittitas County Board of County Commissioners and now by the governor.
For Patton to co-write the column with Helen Wise, a local resident and homeowner who has no dog in this hunt, is just another attempt for her “coalition” to force its agenda on the landowners who will have to live with it in Eastern Washington. It is a cheap shot for those who do not know the real issue.It is not about wind power, but where it is to be located. Imagine a string of 410-foot turbines along Rattlesnake Ridge to Issaquah.
Ed Garrett
Ellensburg
24 July 2007
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2007/07/25/p-i-grants-wind-project-advocate-what-judge-denied/