Maisano Writes Misleading Op-Ed to Gazette

Frank Maisano is an Energy and Environmental Media Specialist with Bracewell & Guiliani, the international law firm handling publicity for Highland New Wind Development, LLC.

Maisano's op-ed published in The Charleston Gazette September 19, 2009, and titled "Bogus claims delay wind project," is, indeed chock-full of bogus claims.

Claims so demonstrably bogus, that this reader was tempted to wonder if, instead of relying upon the constant repetition of false and misleading information, Maisano had, from the beginning, sought to provide an accurate accounting of the proposed location of Highland New Wind Development's wind turbines relative to Camp Allegheny and encouraged his client to work in a spirit of cooperation with the Virginia Department of Historic Resources in minimizing the impact of the turbines on the National Register site, his client's project might be well underway by now.

As it is, Mr. Maisano's client is tied up in yet another round of hearings. While it is true that Bracewell & Guiliani is a large and powerful firm whose services do not come cheaply, it is hard to imagine that the owners of Highland New Wind can feel they are getting their money's worth.

Mr. Maisano states that "from certain high elevation knolls on the Camp Allegheny site, you may be able to look east and see several of the turbines two or three miles away."

It is a well-documented fact that the site of the major December 13, 1861, battlefield engagement, located on the northeast side of the Camp Allegheny Backway, a segment of the original (1840's-era) Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike that bisects the battlefield, is within 1.5 miles of the proposed locations of Turbines 1, 2, 3 and 4 on Tamarack Ridge. Turbines 5-9 are all within 1.5 to 2.2 miles of the site. And Turbines 10-19, located on Red Oak Knob, are all within 2.1 to 2.4 miles of the vantage point of the major battlefield engagement. If erected where they are sited, all nineteen 40-story wind turbines will be visible from Camp Allegheny at a distance of between 1.2 and 2.4 miles.

Now why would Mr. Maisano continue to state, as a fact, something that can be proven a falsehood by any human being with a copy of Highland New Wind's site plan and a USGS topo map?

Mr. Maisano's assertion that Camp Allegheny "does not look much like it did in 1861," prompted me to wonder if his area of expertise extends to the evaluation of the appearance of Civil War battlefields. Such a credential does not appear on the Bracewell & Guiliani website.

That's why, instead of taking Maisano's word for it, I tend to believe National Park Service Chief Historian Emeritus Edwin C. Bearss, who has called Camp Allegheny "one of the best preserved Civil War sites in the country." James I Robertson, Jr., Distinguished Professor of History at Virginia Tech and chief historical consultant to the movie "Gods and Generals" has said that the viewshed at Camp Allegheny is rare, and everything possible must be done to protect it.

The Civil War Preservation Trust's "Ten Most Endangered Sites" for 2009 includes Camp Allegheny as "At Risk," due to the wind utility. If it were the trash dump Maisano claims it is, I can't imagine the Trust would bother. Likewise, it's doubtful that the Congressional Civil War Sites Advisory Commission "Report on America's Civil War Battlefields" would include more modern photos of Camp Allegheny than any other battlefield if it were the eyesore Maisano describes.

Mr. Maisano states that Camp Allegheny "has not been a tourist attraction." Such a statement is difficult, if not impossible, to prove. I do know that more than 300 Civil War reenactors from Pridgeon's Shenandoah Region, and representing several mid-Atlantic states, were at Camp Allegheny in July. The National Youth Science Camp, based in Thornwood, WV, and attracting gifted highschool seniors from around the world, meets at Camp Allegheny every summer. The National Scenic Byways program website (www.byways.org) includes several pages on the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike that feature both the Camp Allegheny Backway and the battlefield. If Maisano means to emphasize that Camp Allegheny is not King's Dominion or Busch Gardens, well, that's exactly the point.

Mr. Maisano says: "Virginia deserves a wind project, just like the several completed or underway in West Virginia."

As "Big Wind" blows into our communities and colonizes our ridgetops, what Virginians and West Virginians deserve is a rational discussion of the real costs and benefits of wind power. Virginians and West Virginians deserve to be presented with accurate information so that we can make well-informed decisions. Virginians and West Virginians deserve to have our legitimate concerns about the negative impacts of 400-foot wind turbines on human health and our environment acknowledged and those impacts minimized.

This cannot occur as long as media experts such as Mr. Maisano are more interested in keeping us mis-informed than in meeting us eye-to-eye.