MCINTOSH COUNTY, Okla. — Residents in rural parts of Oklahoma have been resisting planned wind projects over the past year, calling on state lawmakers to step in.
One of them is doing just that, and 2 News Oklahoma’s Douglas Braff asked him why he wants to restrict wind farms.
“We got to protect our water,” Tim Stacy told 2 News.
Stacy and his wife spearheaded an effort to stop a wind project in McIntosh County. The company TransAlta canceled the project this month, and now the couple and other activists want the state to do more.
This also comes amid a stalemate between anti-turbine activists in neighboring Pittsburg County and their county commissioners.
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They told 2 News their main concern was the turbines potentially polluting local aquifers.
Many aquifers throughout the state provide water for drinking and farming.
As a household that raises animals, Stacy said, “If our water's contaminated, your cattle would be contaminated, and then you're in trouble.”
House Bill 1989 seeks to tackle that.
While there are already some limits on where turbines can go, if HB 1989 passes, no wind energy facility could be built if the base of any tower is less than two nautical miles “from a wildlife refuge, wildlife management area, a body of water regarded as a habitat for migrating waterfowl or any active aquifer.”
The bill’s author, newly elected State Rep. Tim Turner (R-District 15), told us it’s “just to make sure that we protect our wildlife and our water.”
“That is something that we can't get back,” he added. “We're not making more of it.”
The bill’s author tells me he wants to shift Oklahoma back toward oil and gas dominating, hoping President Donald Trump can help swing the pendulum.
When asked if he thinks Trump is an ally when it comes to opposing these wind projects, Turner replied, “I think President Trump has said it well: ‘drill baby drill.’”
“That's what he wants to get back to,” he added. “That's what his administration has said that wind turbine projects will be halted, and we will quit dropping taxpayer monies into these projects.”
Turner referenced how Trump recently ordered federal agencies to halt offshore wind projects.
Corey Williams from the Sustainability Alliance, a Green Country environmental group, called for a balanced approach.
She told 2 News she’s “definitely in support of a diverse portfolio.”
“I think that's important to our state,” Williams added. “And which would include oil and gas, wind, solar, and battery storage and any other innovation that I think is necessary to give us that support to make sure in trying times we can support each other.”
When asked if wind turbines pose an environmental risk, she replied, “I think anything can impose that. And so, I think ... we have to really balance that triple bottom line [of] people, profit, and planet.”
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