Save Our Scenic Hill Country Environment

Save Our Scenic Hill Country Environment was organized by a group of landowners, business people and other concerned citizens who are committed to sensible development in our beautiful Texas Hill Country. We were formed as a response to wind energy development activity in Gillespie County. We believe strongly that industrial wind energy development does not make sense in Gillespie and surrounding counties due to:

• the aesthetics and natural beauty of the Texas Hill Country
• the economic value that our area derives from tourism and smart growth
• the reduction of land values that inevitably follows the construction of wind farms
• the sensitive environmental integrity of our area (including birds, bats and other wildlife)
• the fact that ours is a low-wind area

Based on a number of factors including the heavy reliance on government subsidies and questionable long term sustainability, we question whether wind development makes sense in other parts of Texas even where they have good wind resource and more compatible land use.

Regarding The Public Utility Commission (PUC) CREZ related transmission line development, we oppose the high voltage lines coming through the Hill Country unless the following minimization steps are fully incorporated.

• utilization of existing electric right-of-ways in unpopulated areas
• paralleling the I-10 corridor wherever feasible.
• the use of monopoles, rather than lattice towers, throughout.
• mitigation of environmental impacts throughout

Likewise, the number of routes should be minimized. In addition, landowners should be fully compensated for any impact on their land use and value and direct impacts should be avoided where possible.

Directors

The Directors are: Ann Baker, Dale Geistweidt, Dennis Kusenberger, Peter Mear, Lee Harbin, John Pipkin, Bill Renfro, Billy Teague, Mike Tomforde, Ray Tschirhart, Leo Tynan and Robert Weatherford (Chairman)

Officers

President - Robert Weatherford, Vice President - Bill Renfro, Secretary - Ron Gillet, Treasurer - Kevin Pickard

Fair Use Notice

All material on this website is intended to advance understanding of the environmental, social, scientific, and economic issues of industrial wind turbine development. We believe this constitutes a "fair use" of any copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed an interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond "fair use," you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. If you are the owner of copyrighted material(s) appearing on this site, and wish it to be removed, please contact us directly.