A few weeks ago I heard rumors that the Flint Hills were about to become a giant wind-energy farm. Now I learn, unfortunately, that the rumors are turning out to be true. Several energy companies are indeed planning to invade the Hills. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not opposed to alternative energy sources. In fact, I think that we should be, and all along should have been, doing a lot more to supplement our petroleum energy supply with solar, wind, and water power.

It seems to me, however, that there’s a right way and a wrong way to go about this process, and the right way is not to trash the most beautiful landscape in Kansas. Admittedly, I’m reacting to this threat to my geographical and spiritual home without a full understanding of who and what is involved, but then the energy companies have not exactly been forthcoming in publicizing their moves.

These moves, as I understand it, involve setting up at least half a dozen wind-generator farms, from the northern Flint Hills near Manhattan to below Beaumont. So what’s the big deal about half a dozen wind farms spread out over more than a hundred miles? For one thing, there will probably be close to a hundred turbines in each farm. Each generator, I have heard, is as big as a Greyhound bus and will be from 350 to over 400 feet tall some maybe reaching even 600 feet up into the air. Each tower (FAA regulations) will have a blinking red strobe light flashing all night long. So with one farm on Gun Barrel Hill in Wabaunsee County, one near Council Grove, one near Matfield Green, one near Teterville, one near Burns, one near Rosalia, and one near Beaumont, you would likely never be out of sight of a turbine, day or night.

I’ve heard that the Rosalia location will be on Cattleman’s Hill, traversed by U.S. Highway 54 on the Butler/Greenwood county line. The Dunne Ranch, a beautiful stretch of prairie, lies just on the south side of the highway there. The thought of scores of giant wind vanes and blinking lights detracting from the beauties of that spectacular hill as I drive from El Dorado to Eureka saddens me beyond words.

What about noise? I have been told that the turbines run quiet, that if you are 300 yards away, it’s no noisier than a refrigerator. Well, the noise of some refrigerators can run you out of the kitchen. Then multiply this by 100. Seems to me that we’ll be getting both noise and light pollution from these wind farms. Not to mention the deleterious effect on prairie chickens and other wildlife.

Windmills that big have to be anchored by enough concrete to fill three swimming pools, the supports buried some 30 feet in the ground with 600,000 pounds of concrete. The transmission lines between units, I’ve heard, will be buried, but not the transmission lines going out of the hills. And what happens when those transmission lines reach capacity? Undoubtedly the utility companies will want more lines, more land, and more turbines.

There’s no question in my mind that we are in phase one, the “don’t worry about a thing, everything will be fine” phase, of a master plan that will eventually have the Flint Hills totally covered with row after row of Star Wars whirlygigs. When the utility companies minimize the negative and maximize the positive on this venture, somehow the word “ENRON” keeps popping into my head.

Another troubling factor is that the energy companies involved are all out of state, one even from Germany. Do we really want to ruin the Flint Hills to help California and Texas and Florida utility companies send the electricity out of Kansas? Not only that, but over half of the pastures in the Flint Hills are owned by people who live elsewhere. How much of the money generated by the generators (undoubtedly a pittance compared to the amount the utility companies will rake in) will actually stay in the local communities? Damn little.

Heaven knows that the wind blows plenty strong out in the Hills, but not that much stronger than anywhere else in Kansas. Why not put these wind farms on wheat fields, land that has already been plowed? Why trash what little remains of the tallgrass prairie that once stretched from Texas to Canada and east to Indiana? The Flint Hills are as near to a sacred landscape as we will ever come in this state that the rest of the nation scorns as flat and barren. But we who love the Hills know better. They are an island of quiet beauty that nourish the soul. Do we really want to destroy forever the majesty of one of the Last Great Places in America?