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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?'"
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.
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.
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.
He was being cynical! The chief is being a bit of an idiot! They think that the windmills destroy the "special" grass, but hey if oil and gas companies want to dig and drill that's OK!
Ok me being cynical! No wonder they bleeding lost the wars! Wanna make a bet the windfarm will be more valuable in 50 years than some oil or gas...
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Oil and gas can be drilled from "far" away - windmill on the other hand tend to stick out; and in great numbers.
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...
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.
Drilling derricks can be visible from far away too. Once the derrick is done, the well pumps dot the landscape too, they aren't tall, but every well will get a pump. It seems like their second core objection is that windmills will reduce the market value of the fossil fuels they own. I really don't think that argument has merit. For one, oil is not used for grid power generation. Natural gas is used for power generation, but such an argument from one group to deny another group's ability to compete like that is just silly.
I really don't get the cultural objection to seeing windmills, I don't get why it's such an effective blocking force. Cities might not have skyscrapers if landowners from miles away can block them from being built, in the same way this argument is used to stop windmills from being built.
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.
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.
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.
by "we" you mean people 200 years ago, and "them" you mean different people 200 years ago.
I don't get the objection to seeing windmills either, but I do get the objection to making access roads for windmills through endangered habitat. It should be the same argument against oil drilling though if that is the argument.
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.
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
It seems like their second core objection is that windmills will reduce the market value of the fossil fuels they own. For one, oil is not used for grid power generation. Natural gas is used for power generation, but such an argument from one group to deny another group's ability to compete like that is just silly.
That's not their argument, at least not the way you are making it out to be. It's an issue of access to minerals, not market price being affected by windmills. From the article:
"The areas being initially considered by the first two wind development companies cover approximately 30,000 acres and are located in a prime area for future oil and gas recovery," Red Eagle's statement says.
Galen Crum, chairman of the tribal Minerals Council, whose job it is to protect the mineral estate, said that the council has met with two wind companies planning on erecting about 200 turbines on the prairie.
"They are talking about using an awful lot of ground," Crum said. "They weren't thinking about the mineral estate - just about compensating landowners.
Crum said wind leases last a half-century.
"How are we supposed to know the price of oil in 50 years?" [..] Crum said the area is home to many active and plugged wells, some ripe for reopening as the price of oil rises and new technology makes extraction more efficient.
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
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 ....
uhm when you drive into the preserve there are oil heads and stuff.