Catching the Breeze : Scenic Blight Feared From Wind-Energy Project

A plan to harvest energy by building Los Angeles County’s first wind farm on 270 acres of hilly ranchland near Gorman has drawn strong opposition from residents and environmentalists who claim it will bring visual blight to the now scenic, pristine area.

Opponents say the proposed 458 windmills, many as tall as 150 feet, will lower property values, destroy a wildflower area that attracts sightseers in the spring and endanger birds that might fly into the whirling turbines.

“They’ll dominate everything there,” said resident Susan Hulsizer, a member of the Save the Mountain Committee, a group formed to stop the project.

But the developer, Tehachapi-based Zond Systems, the state’s largest producer of wind energy, claims the company is just as environmentally conscious as its opponents. Zond President James Dehlsen said the wind farm will reduce pollution in the entire region, while producing a much-needed alternative energy source.

The proposed $100-million wind farm would be the first wind-powered electrical generation system in the county, according to the Southern California Edison Co., which has contracted to buy Zond’s electricity. Zond also operates 1,900 turbines on wind farms in Tehachapi, Palm Springs and in the Altamont Pass area near San Francisco.

1985 Proposal

In 1985, Zond proposed a wind farm near Lancaster. But that project was so strongly opposed by Antelope Valley residents who feared the turbines would spoil their views that Zond abandoned the plan, Dehlsen said.

The Gorman project would be on 270 acres of a 3,000-acre ranch leased from the Ralphs family, which for more than 100 years raised cattle there. Only a few head of cattle now graze on the ranch, located about 25 miles north of the Santa Clarita Valley east of Interstate 5 and north of California 138.

Zond’s turbines would resemble gigantic airplane propellers. The three giant rotor blades on each turbine would span 82 feet. They would pivot toward the wind while perched atop towers of latticework ranging from 90 to 150 feet high. The windmills will be constructed in rows in a southwest-northeast alignment perpendicular to prevailing winds from the northwest, Dehlsen said.

Zond has been testing the relentless winds in the Gorman area for about five years, Dehlsen said. The company found that winds average 17 m.p.h. year-round, ideal for a wind farm, he said.

The turbines would generate 200 million kilowatt hours of power a year--enough to supply 40,000 homes, Dehlsen said.

“That’s the equivalent of a medium-sized city,” said Paul Gipe, of the Kern Wind Energy Assn., an organization of wind energy producers in Kern County.

Although Zond filed an application with the county for the project about three years ago, opposition surfaced last September when the company held a meeting to inform the community of its plans.

Since then, members of the Save the Mountain Committee have held their own community meetings and obtained more than 1,000 signatures on petitions opposing the project. A meeting held Jan. 14 attracted 170 people, many from the Santa Clarita, San Fernando and Antelope valleys, organizers said.

“They all come up here to see the wildflowers,” Hulsizer said.

She noted that some of the windmills will be almost as tall as 12-story buildings. “Now, that is really high,” Hulsizer said. “I think we have to make a stand now to preserve our open areas. Quite a lot of land already has been disturbed.”

Dehlsen said that although the wind turbines would destroy some plants, they will not be built where wildflowers are the most prolific. The wildflowers would be destroyed because of the huge amount of space that would have to be cleared to build the turbines and the roads that would be graded to maintain them.

The project would not infringe on a nearby wildflower preserve that would abut the wind farm. The preserve has been designated a “significant ecological area” by Los Angeles County and as such is protected from development, Dehlsen said.

The management of the giant 200,000-acre Tejon Ranch is supporting the citizens committee, contending that a wind farm will lower property values. The ranch, which is nearby and exerts strong influence in the area, has joined the community to protest other projects, including toxic dumps, oil pipelines and state prisons.

“We think it’s bad for the community,” Tejon Ranch spokeswoman Alleen Zanger said of the wind farm. “It will create a forest of wind towers. We feel this would be the beginning of more negative uses of the land. People have gone into this area to get away from things like wind farms.”

Dehlsen says the project will help, not harm, the environment.

He said that a “really important consequence” of allowing the wind farm to be built would be the reduction in fuel oil burned to generate electricity. The wind farm would reduce yearly emissions of nitrogen oxide by 600,000 pounds and sulfur dioxide by 300,000 pounds, he said.