Inside the Coordinated Attack on a North Texas Wind Farm
Earlier this year, a Canadian energy producer was poised to build two large wind farms in Clay County, a mostly featureless stretch of plains at the Texas-Oklahoma line. The 300-megawatt project would have bolstered Texas’ growing portfolio of renewable energy, which last year supplied a record 17 percent of the state’s electricity. But then anti-wind farm activists led by John Greer, a Dallas oil investor, swooped into the farming and ranching community to attack the deal.
Mounting pressure from Greer, politicians and the nearby Air Force base was enough to convince the project developer, Innergex Renewable Energy Inc., to pull the plug in June. The situation is a case study in how opponents can stop wind projects even as Texas has increasingly embraced renewable energy.
“The war is on,” Greer told a packed auditorium at Midwestern State University in 2016. “You do not know what’s happening until it’s in your backyard. And it’s too late by the time that happens.” Greer, whose companies include Matador Oil and Gas LLC, an energy investment firm, had been trying to kill the wind farms since 2015. He helped form Clay County Against Wind Farms, which put on a series of “informational” sessions in Henrietta, the county seat. Greer told the Observer that he took on wind in order to protect his family’s ranch in Clay County; his business interests have “zero” influence, he said.
At one meeting, the group hosted fighter pilots from Sheppard Air Force Base, who told attendees that the turbines would interfere with radar operations, possibly forcing pilot training to be moved elsewhere. Meanwhile, Sheppard press flacks launched a quiet campaign to sway public opinion about the turbines’ “encroachment” into military airspace.
Read more: https://www.texasobserver.org/inside-the-coordinated-attack-on-a-north-texas-wind-farm/
