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on What Wind Means for the Gorge
I wonder if the fish ladder enthusiasts who helped bury celilo spoke with such authority.
posted 1 year, 11 months ago
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on What Wind Means for the Gorge
Levelthinking: Your thinking is anything but level. What do you mean "marginally" seen from the scenic area? Where have you been? Seven Mile, Whistling Ridge and the just recently (last couple weeks) taken off the table Middle Mountain Project would all have been seen from many points of the scenic area. What about Maryhill Museum? Is it not part of the Columbia River Gorge? It now is a wasteland. I don't know too many tourists who will return to the dead zone of the east Gorge. I can tell you I talk to "tourists" in the Gorge at least one day each week and they are now cutting their trips off before they hit the turbines. My moto: "I won't spend one dollar within sight of a turbine." Hopefully millions of other people with vote with their pocketbook and will save themselves lots of tax dollars and bankrupt communities.
These leases are the biggest land grab since the railroads. Farmers, leasing thousands of acres for pennies and a hope in perpetuity. Unfortunately growing up in rural America doesn't prepare people for the swindlers who come to their doors wearing a smile.
posted 1 year, 11 months ago
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on What Wind Means for the Gorge
You will note that when describing the tourist economy I did not mention windsurfers, skiers or any other the other "me" crowd. They come, take, and for the most part contribute little. The big misconception about tourism is that the "play" crowd is our bread and butter. The vast majority of tourists to the Gorge come to enjoy the scenic beauty and all that it entails.
As for the "terrible calamaties we are currently witnessing" I don't think anyone is fool enough to think wind power on every vista in the country would stop us from drilling every drop of oil or building one gas-fired plant, or one coal plant or one nuclear plant. We need them all for when the wind doesn't blow. How can you talk about windpower's immenance to our region when you've been here three years? Green washing doesn't make it "low impact" nor does it make up for the negative effect of clearcutting all of the trees to turn the mountain into your playground.
You may be attributing the short-sightedness to the wrong crowd.
posted 1 year, 12 months ago
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on What Wind Means for the Gorge
I, too, just listened to the show and was surprised by the comment about tourism being a small part of the Gorge economy. I suggest you walk the streets of Hood River and poll the businesses. You will find that the business for the month of July is equal to the entire months of January, February, March and April. August is equal to or greater than July. September remains high because many tourists wait until after those with children are back in school. The rest of the year totaled, can't equal those three months. These are real numbers, not pie in the sky speculation.
Those sales are made to people who are here to attend weddings, family and friend reunions, visit their children who have relocated to this beautiful environment. They drive up from Portland, drive east from Yakima, Selah, Ellensburg, LaGrande, north from Bend. People drive to the Gorge from Seattle and Olympia. Sometimes they come for the day, sometimes the weekend or a week. They all come to hike, fish, bird, picnic, see the waterfalls, see the mountains, photograph, paint or buy art. They come to buy fruit, bring their kids to a farm and see how food is grown or to see real animals. They come to visit a multitude of wineries and vineyards. Have a honeymoon. Stay at the friendly, beautiful hotels, motels, bed and breakfasts and come here just to go back in time a little. They come for business or club meetings at Skamania Lodge or the Best Western. They come to a place where people remember your name and remember the last time you came through. Don't be so foolish as to down play or over look the real economy of the Gorge and Hood River in particular. People from all over the Gorge own businesses in the community of Hood River. The economy feeds the entire Columbia River Gorge.
Most communities in the Gorge haven't figured out yet that tourism depends on being open on Saturday and Sunday and after 5 p.m. in the summer. When they figure that out, they'll be surprised at the results.
posted 1 year, 12 months ago
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on What Wind Means for the Gorge
There are no free lunches! Any energy production source has negative impacts on the environment. We need to stop looking for that free lunch and stop pretending we've found it. Let's weigh the true costs of production of all energy sources and all of the environmental consequences--not let the companies who are currently raiding the national budget and the world's resources do it for us.
Let's talk about taking responsibility for our own consumption. If you have five kids you need to come up with a family plan that allows you to provide enough housing, energy, food production, etc., for the consequences of that reproduction. Not just quip back that if I have the money, I can have as many kids as I want, and then throw them into some collective pool of responsibility when they turn 18, and expect the rest of us to come up with energy and resources to sustain them.
As a society, we love to segment freedom and responsibility. It is my freedom to have as much as I want and your responsibility to provide me with the resources.
How about an energy quota for each person living on the planet. Each person is required to live within that energy quota. If you live below it, you have more to pass on to your child. Those who want to do more than replace themselves, will know that each of their offspring will live with and pass on less than a full quota. If we looked at energy in this way, we would not constantly be required to fuel an ever growing energy demand with no bounds on growth either in population or consumption. Why should my environment be destroyed to provide heat for your five houses that are empty most of the time? Why should my environment be destroyed because, for whatever reason, you've decided to go forth and multiply and multiply and multiply?
If you think that you are somehow special and deserve more, convince those who are leaving the world without an heir to leave their energy quota to you and yours.
I know that expressing problems associated with wind, oil, coal, nuclear, and hydro doesn't just "get on" with providing you and yours with more, and isn't what you want to hear. If we were all unwilling to go beyond short quips and short answers for solutions, the state of affairs would be even worse than it currently is. Imagine that!
posted 1 year, 12 months ago
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on What Wind Means for the Gorge
What a joke. Do you really think that OPB can come to the Gorge, fill a panel with pro-wind puppets and expect to have people who's lives and property are so negatively impacted by this scam come out and pour their hearts out?
This is the Columbia Gorge National Scenic Area. Projects are proposed that will be seen from the Mt. Hood wilderness area. You can already see these things from the top of Mt. Adams. How can you think that it is okay to absolutely destroy one of the most beautiful places in the world and their won't be repercussions?
One of the great raptor landscapes in the northwest, the Columbia Hills, has been devastated by industrial windpower. The east gate of the National Scenic area has been defaced. The storied landscapes in the Mid-Columbia from The Dalles to Walla Walla, including the Oregon Trail and the Lewis and Clark Trail have been disfigured by this abomination.
Environmentalism has truly become a religion. To be one, you are expected to park your brain and listen to the national groups who are funded by the multinational energy companies. You are expected to "believe" that huge industrial swatchs of our rural lands criss-crossed with a maze of dusty road-cuts, flanked with noisy, moving, phallic, oil dripping, giant metal objects are green and clean. If environmentalists did their homework, they would find that windpower is so inefficient and unpredictable that additional CO2-belching fossil fuel-fired plants are need as back-up power just to stabilize the electrical grid. You say, we'll fix it. Yeah. Just like the waste problem with nuclear and the oil spill problems with off-shore oil drilling. We always put off the real environmental problems. And what about the bird and bat kills! What about them? What happens when we have to face the music on that one? You can cover up and hide for only so long. What are you going to do when the birds and bats go the way of the salmon. We know their importance.
As I type this I am listening to Fresh Air's interview with Green Day about their award-winning song "American Idiot." I would recommend that you all spend a little time listening to their song and then come back, put together a real panel and have a discussion.
posted 1 year, 12 months ago
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