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Osage Oppose Wind Power At Tallgrass Prairie
Hugh Pickens writes writes "The Tulsa World reports that Principal Chief John D. Red Eagle of the Osage Nation says the tribe, although not opposed to alternative energy development in general, has found significant reasons to oppose wind farms on the tallgrass prairie, 'a true national treasure' whose last small fragments remain only in Osage County and in Kansas. The Osage County wind farms would not be built in the Nature Conservancy's Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, located northeast of Ponca City, but would be visible from it and Preserve Director Bob Hamilton has urged the county and the state to steer wind development to areas of the county that are not ecologically sensitive. 'Not all areas in the Osage are sensitive,' says Hamilton. 'What makes the tallgrass prairie so special is its big landscape. It's not just local — it has global significance.' The Osage also fear that large wind farms will interfere with extracting oil and gas, from which royalties are paid in support of tribal members as the Osage retain their tribal mineral rights owned in common by members of the tribe. 'They weren't thinking about the mineral estate — just about compensating landowners,' says Galen Crum, chairman of the tribal Minerals Council. 'How are we supposed to know the price of oil in 50 years?'"
Good to know that the noble natives are still the stalwart guardians of nature and the environment. Mining companies come and go, but a windmill will stain the land forever.
The Osage also fear that large wind farms will interfere with extracting oil and gas, from which royalties are paid in support of tribal members as the Osage retain their tribal mineral rights owned in common by members of the tribe.
There's looking out for the environment and there's looking out for number one. Now we know where they stand.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Wind power has some serious drawbacks, but the fact that it might stop you from extracting oil is not one of them.
They lost a long time ago. No indian givers !!
Just don't put it where I can see it.
I hate these kind of people.
In the Netherlands there were (are) people against the windmills for energy. I suppose they want Kinderdijk to be burned down.
In Belgium they were against a wind-farm out on sea, because it MIGHT spoil their view of their apartment blocks that ruined the Belgian coast for the rest of us.
Energy will be a AND/AND solution. We can't rely on just one source, we need many. Wind power is one of them.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Hugh must be related to T.Boone.
What makes these tall grass prairie reserves so special is that they are one of a few places in the plains where you can look across a piece of land and see what it looked like before we completely transformed everything. I personally don't think that windmills are ugly at all an I'm all for it in the midwest. But if you place a windmill farm within sight of the prarie, this feeling of it being untouched will be lost.
it being a helicopter and all
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hughes_TH-55_Osage
Everyone loves wind power, as long as the mills aren't located anywhere near themselves. This is the story every time a project is planned. Besides it's not like you can't just dismantle a windmill, it's not like strip mining that leaves permanent scars. If the world is ever to get serious about leaving oil dependencies behind people are going to have to take the good with the bad.
Personally I love seeing windmills on our coastline and I feel good every time I look at them. They are a MUCH nicer view than the smokestack from a coal plant...
What's "NIMBY" in the Osage tongue?
-Styopa
In 50 years, they won't need to worry about the price of oil. They would be better off honing their traditional skills once again.
"not opposed to alternative energy development in general"
Ah yes, the classic bullshit qualifier. Sort of like when people start their sentences with, "I'm not a racist, but..."
Part of the reason why it's so special is the fact that we've destroyed every other area of the world with mining, oil and gas extraction, agriculture and pollution. Windmills are part of the solution to that, and in the long term may help restore other areas to that condition. We should be caring more about the actual quality of our environment instead of focusing on how good it makes us feel to have one last place that is visually untouched (as opposed to [actually] untouched)
Yeah, let's make these assholes give up something for the good of the white man, to their own detriment. That's a reasonable thing to ask of them.
Maybe we can compensate them by resettling them somewhere.
Posting as AC because I expect some backlash.
Native Americans (really, thought they came across a land bridge) today are nothing like their tribal ancestors. They do not care for mother earth; they will gladly tear up lands to put up casinos. They will gladly use the loop-holes of self governing to gill net until fish populations are depleted. They will gladly sell oil and mineral rights to highest bidder
Now you may say, "This helps the tribal peoples" with income and a better way of life. Well I wish I saw that where I'm from (Midwest); I see people living in trailers and poverty while some of the tribal leaders do VERY well for themselves. Greed and lack of caring is as rampant in these communities as the population at large. Perhaps the "white man" has taught them well.
It has nothing to do with "the landscape" and everything to do with the "royalties" paid to a group of people who are not wanting to work for a living. People who try to use ascetics as an excuse for anything should never be taken seriously. They don't want a power source that doesn't pay them cash, what benefit would they gain from a clean renewable power source. Keep the drills running, keep poisoning the ground water and slowly killing the environment thru toxic revenge. It will keep the place "LOOKING" like a nice place when in fact it's a shit hole with a glitter coating.
LEELA - But what about your sacred land?
SINGING WIND - Land shmand! We don't wanna live on this planet. It's a dump. We'll buy new planet and act like it's sacred. With cash like this, who's going to argue? Nobody, that's who!
What I don't get is what is so damn wrong with a view of wind turbines. Maybe I'm just weird or something, but I think they're beautiful. The fact that they give us (almost) free energy should be a win for everybody.
"good of the white man"? As far as I know, their houses and casino (with Freestyle Cage Fights!) use electricity too.
Dilbert RSS feed
The main reason being, as I often assert, is that human nature is human nature. Doesn't matter if you're "green", or black, white, or red; or for that matter, republican, democrat, libertarian, labor, tory, communist, or socialist; doesn't matter if your heritage hails from the "noble savage" or the "evil white man", or any other race; human beings are intrinsically flawed and fallible, with both good and bad traits, no matter the culture, as of course are the systems they invent, but the real problem lies with the former (being human), not the latter. Not to say that we can't improve and socially evolve, but I think we're a long way off.
This is interesting because it creates a clash between the "greens" and the noble savage theorists. Lisa Simpson's head would explode.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Stole their land and slaughtered their people... let them do whatever they want.
Meant to add: I'm not convinced that native American Indians were ever really the environmentalists they're frequently made out to be in the modern day sense, I think that's a romanticized version; they were survivalists first and foremost; they had to make the most of the natural resources they found else starvation and exposure could set in - waste was not an option. They didn't have a lot of technology at their disposal to help either; they were essentially stone age peoples, they didn't smelt iron nor even bronze. They didn't even have horses until the Europeans brought them over; horses are/were not native to the Americas.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
i'm getting tired of hearing people protest energy projects because they are "visible from . this was also one of the arguments against the ivanpah solar facility and is also thrown at homeowners that want to place solar panels. Everyone is for green energy as long as they don't have to look at it I guess.
Wind farms take up an enormous amount of area for the power they generate compared to other sources of energy. Oil fields can get by with one pumping area in many cases and by law most are limited to their foot print. Then besides having all those towers someone has to maintain the access between each tower, usually a road, maintain the lines connecting each, and to top it off you get to hear them all day and night long. Currently there are many regulations governing what protections must be maintained for the environment in regards to gas/oil drilling. There isn't much if anything in regards to maintaining wind farms.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
lest it lead to Tulsa's Doom
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
hey,
I am of the Miami
I make bows from Osage Orange
0This guy wants to oppose wind farms?
I extend my entire arm, and show piece pipe, tamahawk.
I have greater issuses than this,
Regards,
Da Wei
Reading several comments that say, I hate people who don't want to see it in their community. I'd like to respond by saying promote it in your community. These companies search around for places to put these things and meet opposition.
Since you don't have a problem, contact these companies and "offer your backyard". If you are telling the truth, then its a win win. They get to put these things up, you get to see these beautiful structures obstructing your view, your community gets green energy, and more. I can't see where a bad in this at all. So rather than complain about what other people don't want in their backyard, just bring it to your backyard.
Problem solved. Right?
Native Americans (really, thought they came across a land bridge)
Everyone came from Africa one way or another. Point is they got there first.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Actually, with the confirmation of the pre-Clovis peoples, we can say that the current Native Americans got here second, at best. Maybe third or fourth.
It is the most populous (44,000) and the second-largest geographically (to Corson County, South Dakota) of the six U.S. counties that lie entirely within an Indian reservation. Osage County, Oklahoma
The Tallgrass Prairie Preserve is owned and managed by The Nature Conservancy.
It is protected as the largest tract of remaining tallgrass prairie in the world. The preserve contains 39,000 acres (160 km2) owned by the Conservancy and another 6,000 acres (24 km2) leased in what was the original tallgrass region of the Great Plains that stretched from Texas to Manitoba.
The tallgrass prairie owes its existence to fire, whether caused by lightening or manmade. Without fire, the prairie quickly becomes brushland. The Indians were aware of this and burned the prairie regularly to nurture new growth of succulent grasses and to kill intrusive trees and shrubs. The Nature Conservancy has continued this practice with a process called "patch burning" in which about one-third of the prairie is burned each year.
Prior to its purchase by the Nature Conservancy in 1989, the preserve was called the Barnard Ranch which had been part of the Chapman-Barnard ranch of 100,000 acres (400 km2).
Tallgrass Prairie Preserve
The tall grass can be ten feet high.
The geek has no sense of distance or scale as the westerner understands it. The view the Osage wants to protect is a tiny fraction of its holdings ---
and there nothing the like of it to be found anywhere else on earth.
freeze in the dark. See what I care.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
And were eventually conquered. Im sorry did you have a salient point? Doesnt really matter when they got here, they couldnt hold on to it. The fact that we actually signed and honor treaties with them is quite astounding.
Good-bye
My point was that you don't have to evolve from some simpler lifeform on a land mass to be the "natives," you just have to get there first. Now what was your point?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
You're right. As a thank you gift, let me *cough* *cough* offer you these blankets.
I'm not convinced that native American Indians were ever really the environmentalists they're frequently made out to be in the modern day sense...
Agreed. There is evidence that the Anasazi (of Northern Arizona and the Four Corners region) caused some large ecological problems, including deforestation (of one of their major food trees) and other problems. There is some evidence of various Mesoamerican tribes also collapsing due to environmental degradation.
A large part of the the myth is because most tribes were relatively small, nomadic, and not at all technologically advanced, which generally precludes much impact. Evidence supports that once tribes lost these characteristics (such as in Mesoamerica the American Southwest, and bits of the Southeast) they had as much environmental problems as any other civilization with a like level of technology and population.
Other bits of the myth sprung from us clinging to the antiquated view of Indians as "nobel savages", and from various PR stunts (think the weeping Indian imagery). This is somewhat bolstered by current PR on behalf of some tribes, they do play up this idea as much as possible as seen in TFA. One of the tribes around where I lived built a giant casino/hotel complex, then tore it down, and built another one, then tore that one down to build another, larger, casino/hotel complex. All in the space of two years. Oddly the inside of this hotel is full of pastoral images and Southwestern mythology. This same tribe gives out 100 year leases to any industrial polluter that has cash and is willing to avoid city/county/state taxes and regulations.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
No, this is NIMBY-ism, plain and simple. The argument of the Osage people is exactly the same, and just as invalid, as that of the Massachusetts landowners who complained that an offshore windfarm would ruin the view from their beachfront homes.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
I'm all out of mod points, so all I can do is make a post agreeing with you. Human nature never changes; the only difference between the natives of today and the natives of hundreds of years ago is that now they're surrounded by (relatively) rich white people they can exploit. Just like the white people exploited the natives when they were conquering the Americas.
People are the same, no matter where or when you go. We exploit things, the environment, even other people. Always have, always will.
As a native american I usual side with tribes, but in this instance your post is spot on.
I have also seen my tribe become greedy, selfish, and out of touch with reality.
The reality is pollution is bad, mmmmmkay ?
Another reality is peak oil mmmmmmmkay ?
So again, alternative energy is not an alternative, its going to be required.
Even if abiotic oil exists its natural production exceeds out 85 million barrel A DAY consumption.
I'd prefer that we move to biological hydrogen production, until something better comes along.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_hydrogen_production
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
Good on you. I read both comments, and I think that you stated it well, without singling them out.
testing out my trending skills
Doesn't exceed...
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
"Fuck 'em."
antiquated view of Indians as "nobel savages"
Did you ask Alfred about this? One of his committees may give you a Prize!
(ducks)
As a person who has visited this fantastic preserve on several occasions, I cannot think of a worse place for the tree huggers to setup their moronic windmills. Of all of the desolate and remote lands on the high plains why would they pick the tiny percentage that is a true national treasure? If there were a site worthy of being a prairie national it would be in the Osage Hills of Oklahoma and Kansas. The same line of reasoning goes for the stupid, wasteful Cape Winds project off of Cape Cod, were the leftists plan to plunk a bunch of windmills in the middle of the most valuable recreational waters on the east coast. I can't imagine either project would last long due to vandalism. Drilling for oil and gas are far preferable means to exploit the energy resources of North America, especially with fracking technology.
an ill wind that blows no good
I find them rather nice looking. We have large tracts of windmills in sections of northeastern Oregon - in areas of flat grassland much like the area being discussed in this article. Driving by the windmills in Oregon, I think they're quite pretty. Maybe it's just the knowledge of how they help the environment that makes them look nice to me.
Well, maybe not exactly "helping" the stuff that lives in the environment. Driving-by doesn't give you a complete picture.
http://writing.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474979140882
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/8579747/Wind-farm-forced-to-close-after-complaints-over-the-noise.html
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=3836
So beached whales, noise, millions of birds dead. Doesn't sound like "helping the environment" to me.
Wind turbines generate a very low frequency "thumping" noise as the blades pass by the tower. Frankly, I'd prefer to live next to a nuclear reactor than next to these "green" power generators.
Go ask a banker or government about nuclear to get an idea of where commercial nuclear really stands. Large scale nuclear power is going to dwindle away to nothing because there is no financial driving force and no political driving force. It's only hope is a major breakthrough that will make it commercially viable or far less capital intensive. Something out of China or India may produce that, but for the US the only advances that have happened over the last three decades came from a corporate buyout that delivered technology paid for by the Japanese taxpayer. The US nuclear lobby has been doing little over the last three decades apart from spend money on PR and lobbying to build TMI painted green or trying to get a carbon tax to price coal out of the electricity market.
Civilian nuclear just is not viable at the moment and I really do not understand why you are pretending it is and dragging it up in articles that have nothing to do with it. We are at a point where it looks like those announced AP1000 reactors in the USA are not going to be built at all, so I suggest submitting an article about that and what you think of it instead of polluting articles that have nothing whatsoever with nuclear with irrelevant bullshit like "renewable energy isn't a viable alternative to nuclear". With the small unit size and short lead time you get with wind in the situation of the article there is no nuclear or coal option because it's too small to be worth it - diesel or maybe a tiny gas turbine is the competing option. Your suggestion of nuclear in this situation is unfortunately as stupid as proposing a steam powered wristwatch - but of course energy was mentioned so you just had to mindlessly cheer for your team.
If you leave any younglings alive, shall they not avenge?
If you're going to be the Empire, be the Empire. Don't leave any of them alive. Not. One. Single. Bothan.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
the Tallgrass prarie preserve is very special. if you havent been there, you wont understand it, but if you go there, you will.
just watch out for the bison.
although i suspect there is more to the story, becaus you can see little pumping stations and stuff mixed into the preserve, and there are cattle ranches all around it.
Oklahoma was originally called 'indian territory', it was a place 'in between states' where dozens of tribes were sent, including the Osage whose homelands were further east.
if you were really goin to 'give back' land you would give back parts of ohio & kentucky
there is no way to interpret your statements other than racism.
Osage history is not any more or less 'brutal' than the rest of oklahoma history. including the incident in 1921 in which a white mob burned down 'black wall street' in a single day. so ....
and a lot of other stuff for the poor people in the tribe.
just because you are native doesn't make you automatically rich.
please just stop talking about stuff you don't understand.
you can see horse barns, oil heads, etc. they have had to buy patches of land from prior landowners to create the preserve, its still in the middle of a bunch of cattle ranches and oil leases. the whole thing about 'pristine view' is kind of silly.
uhm when you drive into the preserve there are oil heads and stuff.
"And lastly, the wind is like totally gay."
Lisa is a bright kid, she would understand that umbrella terms aren't a place for preconceptions and bromides.
Ideological lables can only give superfiscal information, if you got logic bombed you obviously overestimated your knowledge.
I personally can't stand people that think they have figured out the agenda for everyone.
My -1 Troll is actually a +1 funny. And my -1 flame is actually a +1 insightfull.
Plus where was the last time you saw a windmill-powered grain-mill? They were built once and apparently they "stain the land forever".
So where's the stain?