Letter to SCC Hearing Examiner

December 11, 2009

Mr. Alexander Skirpan
Senior Hearing Examiner
State Corporation Commission
The Tyler Building
1300 East Main Street
Richmond, Virginia 23219

RE: Commonwealth of Virginia, ex rel
Department of Historic Resources v. Highland New Wind Development, LLC
Case No. PUE-2009-00092

Dear Mr. Skirpan,

Please accept this letter as a formal request for permission to give oral testimony regarding the anticipated visual impact of Highland New Wind Development’s 19 proposed wind turbines on Camp Allegheny, a site listed on the National Register of Historic Places and widely considered one of this country’s most undisturbed and significant Civil War Battlefields.

Although Highland New Wind is located in Virginia, and Camp Allegheny is located in West Virginia, Camp Allegheny’s stature as a National Register site means all United States citizens, regardless of state residency, are stakeholders in its preservation.

Many citizens of the Allegheny Highlands believe that the preservation of historic landscapes must be balanced against energy development. Costs to the consumer—not just in terms of utility rates, but also in terms of loss of cultural identifiers such as the landscape itself—must be factored into the viability of an energy project on the front end. Our National identity is tightly bound to the land and to the special places we, all of us, have identified as sacred, and thus worthy of preserving for future generations.

I look forward to giving testimony on December 22, 2009.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Dawn Baldwin Barrett

CC: Joel H. Peck, Clerk of the Commission