SCC Issues Order Denying Complaint

On February 26, 2010, the Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC) issued an "Order Denying Complaint" in the matter of the Department of Historic Resources (DHR) v. Highland New Wind Development (HNWD). The SCC formally closed the case. DHR elected not to appeal.

For Brightside, this particular, peculiar, exquisitely painful path has reached a dead end. Which is not, by the way, the same thing as declaring it over.

Upon reading the SCC's "Order," anyone who has followed this story since August, 2009, or before, might be forgiven for experiencing an almost vertiginous sense of deja vu all over again. The SCC's language is dizzying, indeed, in it's strict adherence to original positions. No new data has penetrated a legal shell constructed not so much to serve the public interest in all it's myriad manifestations, but to deny that anything but a pure profit motive could benefit anyone, anytime, anywhere. To the profiteer goes the spoils.

And if rural communities, fragile ecologies, and revered historic landscapes--if the fast dwindling special places in our increasingly commoditized human lives--must be laid waste to serve the profiteer, look no further than the SCC to find a "public service agency" committed to leading that charge.

The SCC's behavior is just one more example of a tragic perversion of our democracy. A betrayal of not just the essential values of public service, but of the very idea of public good. The basic American value of common interest.

The SCC's strict adherence to the absolute most conservative interpretation of a point of Virginia law, i.e: Since the Highland County Board of Supervisors (HCBOS) claimed to have considered "viewshed" before approving a permit for HNWD to construct 19, 400-foot wind turbines, then the SCC is prohibited from considering the specific visual impact of those turbines on Camp Allegheny Battlefield, is, to put it in the nicest possible terms, pure poppycock.

If the SCC had any real concern for the multifaceted nature of the common good they're charged with serving, the issuance of the first industrial wind permit in the state of Virginia would have been the ideal, wished-for opportunity to set multifaceted legal precedents in anticipation of an industrial invasion. Precedents one would assume especially meaningful in a state choc-a-bloc with as many revered historic sites as Virginia.

Regardless the societal/cultural illogic of it, the fact is this: Based on a generally recognized, person-on-the-street concept of societal/cultural duty, the SCC abrogated that duty.

Why?

We don't know. Not for sure. But we have theories, based on observations.

The SCC abrogated their duty to fully consider the public interest because paving the way for profit is Job #1 for regulating authorities in America. Because it is now an article of faith among the "deciders" that any industry is better than no industry--regardless the tax payer expense, the negative impact to the community and the environment, or the very small number of jobs created.

This abrogation of duty was made much easier, however, by the fact that Camp Allegheny is not located in Virginia, but in another state. According to the oft-repeated wisdom of the SCC, Camp Allegheny is none of DHR's business nor theirs--despite the site's national stature and it's immediate proximity to Virginia's border. The factual evidence of the site's national stature, historic relevance, and belovedness were not considered relevant to the SCC's decisionmaking process. Out of their jurisdiction. None of their concern.

That an agency whose very reason for being is to regulate the profoundly interstate issues of railroads and utilities should claim, regarding the impact of a particular wind utility, that they are prohibited from taking an interstate view is utter hogwash.

As Brightside has noted before: What if the situation were reversed?

Ah, but imagining a reversal of fortune, a circumstance in which the beloved battlefield were located in Virginia and the profiteer in West Virginia, is beyond the capacities of Virginia's current Commissioners. Apparently.

Given the hundreds of miles of borders we share and the rate at which wind developers are applying for grid connection permits in both states, such a failure of imagination on the part of the SCC Commissioners will have generational impact far beyond their Richmond offices.

Was any consideration given to the landscape of the grave new world they've authorized?

We have no doubt that the letter of the law supports the SCC's decision.

We have every doubt that common sense concurs.

And if you've ever been in Highland County, Virginia or Pocahontas County, West Virginia, your human nature recoils at the very idea of 400-foot structures here. They don't belong.