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• Don't Let Horizon Fence Union in on THREE sides with their Windmills!

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• Take a walk to Main Street and look around.  Can you see the foothills peeking up to the west, east and south of us?  They are beautiful, aren't they?  Some still have a touch of snow on them, even though we've had an incredibly warm winter.  There is something almost spiritual about those hills.  They make me feel calm, safe and connected somehow to the natural beauty that surrounds us.

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• Sadly, Horizon Wind Energy wants to line those hills with windmills that will be 500 feet high.  That would be 50 stories in the big city.  The closest towers will be erected 1.2 miles from the "center of town" measured from Beakman Street.  That means that people living on the outskirts of Union will be less than a mile from the closest tower.  Imagine a line of 164 towers making noise and blinking red lights all night long. 

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• As business owners, we have struggled to rebuild Union's economy since the 1950's.  We have tried to promote tourism as a way to bring new income to town.  We are beginning to make some good progress with Cycle Oregon, the Harvest Festival, Grassroots, EOLS and other events that have brought people to Union.  Imagine what will happen to tourism when we are sitting in the middle of a wind farm.

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• As a Union resident you have to ask yourself what the best outcome is for our town in all this.  Proponents of the project are excited about the prospect of making money while the wind farm is being built.  Even if it takes two years – what then?  Those jobs will be gone and we will be stuck with 164 wind towers messing up our little piece of heaven.  When Horizon built Elkhorn Ridge, they promised they would provide a bunch of permanent jobs.  First of all, they hire people from out of the area.  Second, there aren’t many jobs to begin with.  How many jobs would Horizon need to provide us to make up for lost opportunities in tourism and new business coming to town?  One heck of lot more than they have any intention of providing!

   

The County Commissioners think that they will make a lot of money in taxes.  They want to charge Horizon a DIP fee – but they are very non-committal on who would get the money from that fee.  The truth is that Horizon doesn’t pay taxes – they have tax exemptions and subsidies.  They promised us income from taxes when they built Elkhorn Ridge.  Has ANYONE seen any of that tax money?  The City of Union isn’t getting any.

Horizon is not a benevolent organization  – it is a multi-national for-profit corporation based out of Spain and Portugal.  They buy all the towers and all of the parts from countries like Vietnam.  Every dollar they make leaves Union County and even the United States.  They want to put up windmills so they can make money – WE need to make sure they don’t destroy our quality of life in order to do that.    

Here’s the bottom line.  Wind power is here to stay until the feds and the bureaucrats at the state decide it isn’t a good idea.  We can’t fight that battle.  While some people are advocating that all windmills be stopped, we are not among them.  Our goal is to get Horizon to change the location of the towers and reduce the impact on Union’s quality of life.  That way, the contractors still get the business, Horizon still gets to put up windmills and, who knows?  The County may actually collect some taxes.

When this matter comes up for hearing, we need to pack the room with residents who feel that moving the proposed site for the towers further outside of town is a fair compromise. 

Below are some sample letters you can download to help you get started with your letter writing campaign to convince the State of Oregon that the wind towers