Tilting at Windmills : Palm Springs Gallops Into Court to Battle Energy Devices
When the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in 1982 unveiled drawings of wind energy farms planned for the San Gorgonio Pass, city officials here thought they looked like clusters of stick men against the backdrop of stark desert and snow-capped mountains.
What they actually got were thousands of windmills, each reaching more than 100 feet high. They stand like a forest of metal trees glinting in the sun-drenched pass, a gateway to this mecca for Southern California’s wealthy.
“They all just came in at once--kazoom!” said Palm Springs Mayor Frank M. Bogert, placing a pinch of snuff in his cheek. “Every time I go out I see more windmills and get madder’n hell.”
He is not alone. Palm Springs recently filed suit in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles in an effort to force the Bureau of Land Management and seven windmill developers to dismantle some of the machines, camouflage others better, stop building new ones on ridge lines and move some existing machines farther away from highways.
The suit alleges that the windmills destroy the beauty of the landscape, endanger wildlife habitat and create bothersome, ground-shaking noise. It also accuses the bureau of issuing more permits for windmills than were promised in an environmental impact study completed in 1982.
Bogert and others said the intent of the suit is not to bring a permanent halt to windmill construction, but to “slow them down all we can,” and make them more sensitive to the environment.
But perhaps most importantly in Palm Springs--ever guarding its reputation as a haven for the wealthy--the windmills are an eyesore.
“We don’t have any industry in Palm Springs and we want to keep it that way,” Bogert said. “We don’t think tourism and industry go together . . . and all these windmills look like industry.”
The Bureau of Land Management flatly denies the lawsuit’s allegations, while the windmill developers, steaming over what they call a malicious attack on their industry, have threatened to file $500 million in countersuits.
Fumes About ‘Arrogance’
William Adams, an executive of one of the windmill firms, fumes about the city’s “arrogance.”
“For the City of Palm Springs to turn down $500 million worth of projects to be installed this year alone is . . . narrow-minded,” Adams said. “Their feeling seems to be, ‘If you want to be in our wonderful Palm Springs, you’ve got to pay your dues, baby.’ ”
A few of these developers, who include Trans World, Capco Financial Services, Renewable Energy Ventures, San Gorgonio Farms, Sandberg, California Wind Energy Systems and Mesa Wind Corp., complained that the suit has already dampened the enthusiasm of some potential investors.
“I think this is a deliberate attempt to stall the industry and force us to negotiate with them,” said David DiJulio, vice president of operations at Renewable Energy Ventures. He added that “most people feel windmills are interesting, innovative, clean, efficient and make money for people.”
Bureau of Land Management officials contend that the Palm Springs lawsuit misrepresents the facts. “We never, never, never said we would allow developers to build a certain amount (of windmills) and no more,” said Leslie Cone, area manager for the bureau. She added that the industry has brought jobs to the area and constitutes an important non-polluting source of electrical energy.
As it stands, there are about 1,100 windmills on about 2,300 acres of federal land in the area, none of them within the Palm Springs city limits, Cone said. She added that the federal agency has approved construction of another 1,300 windmills in the area by the end of the year.
“How would it be,” she asked, accenting each word with a hard tap of a pen on her desk, “if people in Palm Springs turned on their air conditioners and nothing happened? If you’re a user of electricity, you can’t be against all forms of energy production.”
The windmills come in a variety of designs and sizes, typically ranging from 40-kilowatt to 200-kilowatt machines. The electrical energy they produce is fed into Southern California Edison Co.’s utility grid that services customers in the greater Los Angeles area, as well as in Palm Springs.
Under ideal wind conditions and with a minimal amount of mechanical problems, a 50-kilowatt windmill, for example, will produce about 100,000 kilowatt hours of electricity annually. The average Edison customer uses 6,000 kilowatt hours a year.
However, according to Edison, which also buys energy from other windmill farms in Riverside and Kern counties, the windmills are at best a minor energy source.
“A tenth of a percent of the energy we sold in 1984 came from wind,” said Charles McCarthy, vice president of advanced engineering at Southern California Edison. He added, however, that that was enough power to supply the annual energy needs of 10,500 average households, equal to about a third of the homes in Palm Springs.
In the heated dispute between city officials and developers, both sides have been prone to hyperbole.
Despite the lawsuit’s emphasis on how windmills destroy the natural beauty of the landscape and pose hazards for wildlife, including big horn mountain sheep and fringe-toed lizards, city officials privately admit that the crux of the problem is that windmills do not jibe with the city’s image or its tourist-based economy.
“We’re working with a developer to put in a six-story resort hotel complex with 200 to 300 condos and a 36-hole golf course here,” said Palm Springs City Planner Douglas Evans during a tour of a proposed development site. “Ask yourself,” he said, pointing at the windmill farm across California 111, “would you like to look out the window of your condo and see that?”
Some windmill developers call that attitude hypocritical.
“I personally feel that condos, golf courses and tennis courts have greater (negative) impact on the environment,” DiJulio said. “They are unnatural and use a heck of a lot of water.”
Nonetheless, DiJulio, who is trying to line up investors to finance a $15-million windmill project on BLM land, would like to settle the dispute out of court if possible.
“We’ll paint the windmills Palm Springs pink if that’s what they want,” he said, quickly adding that, “our position is that we are complying with all regulations.”
They Hear the Hum
Camouflaging windmills--the most common method is painting them “desert tan”--will not make living near them much easier for some residents of the sparsely populated desert terrain surrounding Palm Springs. In the tiny, secluded hamlet of Bonnie Bell, tucked inside White Water Canyon, a wildlife sanctuary about five miles west of Palm Springs, some people do not look west anymore.
About 30 windmills sprouted on the western ridge line of the canyon about six months ago. The whirring noise they make now blends with the sound of wind rustling through the cottonwood and palm trees.
“When they start turning in concert you hear a swish and a hum like a large energy generating plant, which is what they are,” said Otis Bainbridge, who built a handsome home here out of scrap wood, glass and metal in 1978 in an effort to escape the hubbub of city life. “Most of us are quite disappointed, to put it mildly.”
“I call them tin skeletons,” added neighbor Kathryn Mackenzie, who settled in the canyon 52 years ago. “They are not natural--that’s the whole thing.”
Buyers Get Tax Credit
The windmills may not be natural, but they are attractive investments for those hoping to lessen their state and federal tax liability. Tax credits available to windmill buyers enable them to write off as much as 50% of their total investment in the first year.
The tax credits, however, are expected to expire at the end of this year, which has some Palm Springs officials worried about the long-term viability of the industry.
Developers hope that that will not happen. “There won’t be an instant death, but there will be a shakeout and the strong will survive,” said Phillip Cruver, president of Trans World. “We expect to be among the survivors.”
Besides, he added, “We have a new design that will be competitive without tax benefits.”
