November 9, 2003
 
 The wind swooped along a narrow ridge of Backbone Mountain and coaxed the gigantic blades on dozens of sleek white turbines to turn in a graceful, choreographed routine, like birds pirouetting against the clouds.
 
 The Mountaineer Wind Energy Center, which opened in December in West Virginia near the Maryland border, turns travelers' heads along winding, hilly Route 219 for good reason. Once limited largely to the Far West, electricity-generating windmills are beginning to sprout on hilltops and ridges across the nation.
 
 Wind power developers are looking at the mountains of Western Maryland as the next frontier.
 
 That region is ripe for development, they say, because it's windy, close enough to densely populated areas and offers plenty of available land on farms, mountaintops or coal mines, active and abandoned, in an area hungry for economic development
 
 Developers say as many as 1,000 windmills towering more than 200 feet could someday dot Maryland's mountain ridges.
 
 This year, Clipper Windpower Inc. and US WindForce LLC became the first two developers to win state approval to build wind energy centers with a combined 92 turbines in Allegany and Garrett counties.
 
 The two companies have land deals in place and permits in hand to build windmill farms by the end of next year, though they still face significant hurdles.
 
 Others hope to someday plant hundreds of wind turbines offshore in the Atlantic Ocean - including off Maryland's coast - in longer-term proposals that have stirred up far more controversy.
 
 Improved turbines, a growing green-energy market and a federal tax credit are spurring development in the East, which has lower wind speeds than other areas of the country.
 
 "Five years ago, the technology wasn't quite there. The cost of energy would have been too high," said Kevin Rackstraw, regional leader of eastern North America for Clipper, which plans to build up to 67 wind turbines on the Maryland side of Backbone Mountain near Oakland. The wind farm will generate 101 megawatts, enough to power 35,000 homes.
 
 Higher energy costs and rising demand are creating a significant market for wind power, Rackstraw said, adding, "Wind is much more attractive than two or three years ago."
 
 Officials with the state and Allegany and Garrett counties envision the first two Maryland wind projects as the start of something much bigger: a new industry for an economically lagging area of the state that has suffered more than its share of job losses.
 
 Officials look to the wind farms to bring in construction and maintenance jobs, tax revenue and tourists.
 
 The $110 million Clipper Windpower project is expected to be the largest single investment ever in Garrett County. It also would be the county's largest property taxpayer, generating more than $1 million annually. Project managers plan to pay $2 million to $3.5 million in construction wages.
 
 "It's hard for us to say no to $100 million" in a single investment, Garrett County Commissioner Fred Holliday said during a community meeting last month near Cumberland.
 
 "That's a lot of money for schools and roads and other purposes. People say, 'My God, you're ruining the mountain.' But which is worse, houses or wind turbines? I think this is the way to go economically. This is going to help."
 
 Wind power, which has been used for millennia, is the world's fastest-growing energy technology. It has burgeoned into a $10 billion-a-year industry, surpassing nuclear power in capacity installed each year, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
 
 Wind is free, nonpolluting and renewable, not imported and not subject to control by a cartel such as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. And, because of the federal tax credit, the cost has come more into line with that of generators fueled by natural gas, at an average of 3 cents to 6 cents per kilowatt-hour. Coal-fired plants are generally the cheapest.
 
 Still, wind produces a small fraction of the nation's power - about a third of a percentage point - enough for about 1.57 million U.S. homes.
 
 The United States has about 17 percent of the installed wind capacity worldwide. Germany and Denmark are the leaders. In the mid-Atlantic region, only Pennsylvania, West Virginia and New York have wind power centers, most of which have begun operating since 1999.
 
 Increasing wind energy, a goal of the federal government, remains challenging because, as any becalmed sailor knows, wind doesn't blow on demand. What's more, the technology costs more upfront than fossil-fuel generators do, and some prime wind sites are too remote from power customers.
 
 Environmentalists have raised concerns over aesthetics, noise and the effects on migrating birds, which are sometimes killed when they fly into the rotors.
 
 Still, the nation is on its way to meeting modest goals first set during the Clinton administration. The Energy Department's wind initiative calls for producing at least 5 percent of the nation's electricity with wind by 2020 and increasing the number of states with more than 20 megawatts of wind power to 16 by 2005.
 
 "In the U.S., a range of 10 percent to 20 percent is feasible," said Tom Gray, deputy executive director of the American Wind Energy Association. "We think 6 percent by 2020 is achievable, a conservative number that could be higher. "
 
 The first Maryland projects, even with leases on the land and permits and environmental studies in hand, are by no means done deals. The companies still need financing, which has become much more difficult in the tumult that has engulfed the power industry since Enron's collapse.
 
 Before they can hope for financing, the developers need to persuade utilities or other wholesale buyers to sign long-term power contracts. More problematic, the companies' negotiations with potential customers can't be concluded until Congress extends the wind power federal tax credit, which is to expire at year's end. The tax extension is part of the energy bill being discussed in Congress.
 
 "Until that gets extended ... nobody is willing to sign our contract," Clipper's Rackstraw said.
 
 The obstacles are even greater for offshore wind farms, none of which has been built in the United States.
 
 "Nobody wants it done in their back yard; nobody wants to see these turbines in the water," said Dennis Quaranta, president of Long Island, N.Y.-based Winergy LLC, which is hoping to build its first project off Virginia's coast by 2005. "It's costlier to go offshore [than on land], and again, nobody's gone through the process. Once the first ones are done, it will be easier and more accepted."
 
 Winergy met fierce community resistance this year to a plan for as many as 352 windmills 3 1/2 miles off Ocean City.
 
 "The people were very, very upset and did not want it there," Quaranta said. "They told us not to come back."
 
 But the company hasn't given up on the idea. Depending on how the Virginia project goes, Quaranta expects to complete applications with the Army Corps of Engineers to build off the coasts of Maryland, New Jersey and Delaware.
 
 Despite the uncertainties, developers are pushing ahead with the Western Maryland projects.
 
 On an abandoned coal mine high on Savage Mountain south of Frostburg, David F. McAnally, US WindForce's chairman and chief executive, recently climbed over barren, rocky ground, and looked down into a deep pit littered with old, broken chairs, lawnmowers and appliances.
 
 On nearly 1,000 acres leased from four coal companies, including one that is actively mining along the ridge, McAnally's company plans to put up 25 wind turbines, each producing 2 megawatts of electricity, enough for 15,000 homes.
 
 "We can take something that was mined, that was torn apart and never would be used again," he said. "There's great potential in this part of the state. You could have a tremendous industry without packing a turbine on every hilltop. Wind allows an offset to forms of power generation that have been emitters of pollutants. We think people will embrace this new type of power generation."
 
 US WindForce has developed and sold 40 wind farms across the country. It is developing projects in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Virginia in addition to Savage Mountain. The company also is seeking permits to build a second project, on Dans Mountain in Allegany County, by 2005.
 
 State and county officials think hundreds of millions of dollars in wind farm development can have a ripple effect economically, spurring more jobs and revenue by luring related businesses - turbine manufacturers, for instance - to the area.
 
 The promise of an economic windfall has prompted neighboring states to pave the way for wind farms with incentives.
 
 Pennsylvania set goals for utilities to buy renewable energy when it deregulated its electric industry, and West Virginia has fewer regulations than Maryland, said Mike Tidwell, executive director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, which promotes clean, renewable energy. Maryland, he said, has done nothing.
 
 "You have an industry that's ready to come into this state, and Western Maryland in particular," he said. "What's holding it up? We're surrounded by these states that are incentivizing wind development."
 
 Maryland could lure more wind farms if the state's utilities were required by law to purchase a certain percentage of their energy from renewable sources, say proponents of a "renewable portfolio standard," a measure that has been defeated before in the Maryland legislature.
 
 Such a measure has been enacted in some form in 14 states, but Maryland's utilities have opposed it.
 
 Michael T. Richard, director of the Maryland Energy Administration, said the Ehrlich administration is working on a number of ways to promote renewable energy, including a possible state tax credit. The renewable standard "very well could be a bill we could support for Maryland. It was a great means to bring wind energy projects to Texas," he said.
 
 Constellation Energy Group, parent of Baltimore Gas and Electric Co., would support a renewable standard in the state if details, such as how to define renewable energy, could be worked out, said spokesman Robert L. Gould.
 
 "We are supportive of renewable energy," Gould said. "We think that market forces are the best drivers of technology and fuel diversity. We do believe incentives can be provided to the end user that would be useful in encouraging the development of renewable resources."
 
 Such a requirement would help lower some of the barriers to getting wind projects built, said Rackstraw, whose California-based company, Clipper, is the developer of the proposed Oakland wind farm on Backbone Mountain.
 
 "The difficult part is convincing a power buyer to take on the risk of a long-term power contract," he said. "But we like to tell people, even though there may be a premium to certain kinds of power today, our power is a fixed cost. The price I sell to them today, I can sell to them for the next 20 years. It's not subject to federal fuel price fluctuations."
 
 In the case of Mountaineer Wind Energy Center, the operator, FPL Energy, sells 100 percent of the electricity to Exelon Generation Co. under a long-term contract.
 
 On a sunny, windy day in West Virginia, Mary Wells of FPL strolled down the winding road through Mountaineer wind farm where 44 windmills form a line over six miles of ridge on Backbone Mountain in Tucker County.
 
 Since opening in December, the center has been a good producer for FPL, which operates 30 windmill farms in 10 states, Wells said. Passers-by often stop and inquire about the height of the towers (228 feet) and the length of the blades (115 feet).
 
 Wells said technology has improved drastically since windmills were first used commercially to generate electricity in the early 1980s. At the time the blades turned much faster, each tower had a huge footprint and many more towers were needed to generate the 1.5 to 2 megawatts of electricity put out by a single turbine today.
 
 At Mountaineer, electricity is produced when the wind powers a generator in a box called a nacelle on top of each windmill tower. The electricity is then sent to a transformer next to each tower, which kicks up the voltage and sends it off to the substation. Computers in each tower take readings of wind direction and speed, and program the head of the turbine, which can turn 360 degrees so that the blades are always facing the wind.
 
 One of Mountaineer's customers is American University in Washington, which has bought 5 percent of its electricity from the wind center.
 
 "It does cost us more to purchase, but the fact is we recognize we're paying some costs associated with fossil fuel and nuclear that we don't necessarily know about," said William Suter, director of physical plant operations.
 
 "We are attempting as an institution to reduce ... the impact of what we do on the environment. This was just one thing we were able to do."
 
 
 
 Copyright (c) 2003, The Baltimore Sun

Friday, November 7, 2003; Page B03
 
 
 A task force appointed by Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. to overhaul state government will instead recommend few dramatic changes to the structure of Maryland's bureaucracy, according to a draft of the panel's report.
 
 The 25-member task force will recommend the elimination of just three relatively small agencies: the Maryland Energy Administration, the Health Claims Arbitration Office and the State Board of Contract Appeals. It will propose the end of state aid for some unprofitable ventures, such as the Canal Place development in downtown Cumberland. And it rejected one of the new administration's most controversial ideas, a proposal to merge the Department of the Environment and the Department of Natural Resources.
 
 Instead, the panel led by former governor Marvin Mandel focused on more-modest efficiencies, such as consolidating numerous campus police agencies into a single force managed by the University of Maryland System and giving the Maryland Stadium Authority oversight of public school construction.
 
 The task force also will propose that Ehrlich better manage the array of programs that affect the Chesapeake Bay by appointing a new Cabinet-level "Bay coordinator" to manage a more powerful Bay Cabinet, prepare an annual "Bay budget" and propose a "Bay legislative agenda."
 
 "A lot of folks came into the commission with high expectations," said Del. John L. Bohanan Jr. (D-St. Mary's), one of four lawmakers on the panel. "People had preconceived notions of where the fat was. But when they got into these agencies, they recognized that, while there appears to be a lot of fat from the outside, there were actually legitimate functions going on."
 
 Ehrlich, the state's first Republican governor in three decades, won election last fall on a promise to end what he called the "cocktail party of overspending" in Annapolis and bring "fiscal sanity" to the Democrat-controlled State House.
 
 To make good on that promise, Ehrlich announced in August that he had asked Mandel (D) to chair the Blue Ribbon Commission on the Structure and Efficiency of State Government. At the time, Ehrlich said the effort could lead to the restructuring or consolidation of some of the state's 59 independent agencies.
 
 Mandel, who in 1972 consolidated 267 agencies into less than two dozen Cabinet departments, is considered the father of Maryland's current government structure and is widely respected, despite having received a 19-month federal prison sentence for racketeering and mail fraud. His conviction was overturned on appeal.
 
 In August, Mandel said the commission's goal was not to save money, but to make "the system more efficient and responsive to the people."
 
 Among other task force recommendations:
 
 • Transfer forestry programs and a subsidy program that pays farmers to grow grasses instead of crops from the Department of Natural Resources to the Department of Agriculture.
 
 • Consolidate police forces throughout state government, merging 16 small agencies under the umbrella of the Department of General Services and three transportation police agencies into a single Department of Transportation police force.
 
 • Create a state gaming commission to oversee the Maryland State Lottery and slot machines if the General Assembly agrees to expand gambling.
 
 • Conduct a thorough review of public higher education in the state, focusing on possible savings through "changes in teaching loads, excessive faculty and reconsideration of tenure."
 
 • Transfer the broadcast license for Maryland Public Television to a nonprofit organization.
 
 The 145-page report will be officially unveiled Monday, and the public is invited to comment at a hearing Thursday at the State House. Anyone wishing to testify must call 410-260-7338.
 
 Staff researcher Bobbye Pratt contributed to this report.
 

 Originally published October 19, 2003
 
 
 FLINTSTONE -- Six months ago, Shelley R. Miller was a park naturalist. Now she runs a booming business arranging outdoor adventures for tourists in and around the mountain-cradled Rocky Gap State Park.
 
 She doubts she would have done so well so quickly without Rocky Gap Lodge & Golf Resort, which opened in 1998 with $54 million in state, local and private financing.
 
 "The heart and soul and bulk of our business is tied directly to Rocky Gap," said Miller.
 
 Miller loves this resort, just east of Cumberland in economically distressed Allegany County, but others here hate it.
 
 The complex has lost $19 million, and critics say it's not worth the financial sacrifices that brought it to Western Maryland. They watch with jaundiced eyes as the state spends several million more on an expansion that hotel operators believe will turn things around for the resort.
 
 "My people up here, the citizenry, are not enamored with Rocky Gap," said state Del. Kevin Kelly, an Allegany Democrat. "The county does not have the wherewithal to put up its match for school construction. It has come to light that the reason for that is that the county is carrying $4 million worth of debt on Rocky Gap."
 
 For all the financial pain, its advocates argue that Rocky Gap is far from a traditional political boondoggle. They say the struggling resort is helping struggling Allegany County in ways obvious and subtle.
 
 In the peak months from May to November, 300 people are employed to run the 217-room hotel, its two restaurants and the 18-hole golf course designed by Jack Nicklaus.
 
 Every year, Rocky Gap pumps about $1.5 million into the local economy -- spread among nearly 100 businesses, including a beer distributor and a computer operations business -- and donates more than $100,000 to charity. Hotel officials estimate that each guest spends at least $25 while in town. Multiplied by roughly 55,000 people a year, that's nearly as much as the hotel spends.
 
 Allegany economic development officials call the rustic lodge the county's "front door" and use it as a base for wooing businesses to the area. A cottage industry of outdoor sports and activities has grown up around the resort, brokered by Miller. Paintings for sale by local artists cover the walls inside, which makes the hotel the area's largest (though unofficial) retail gallery.
 
 Local boosters say the complex is a boon primarily because it brings in conference-goers and vacationers who would otherwise have never ventured so far into Western Maryland -- people with money to spend, people who might even think about moving there one day and helping Allegany County grow again. Its population has been shrinking for 50 years.
 
 "It's been a tremendous thing for Cumberland," said Lee N. Fiedler, that city's mayor, who frequently pops over to the lodge to encourage guests to visit the city while they're nearby (and finds that a good number of them do). "Rocky Gap has given us a chance by drawing the people up here to see the area."
 
 He thinks it's one of the best tourism investments the state has made in Allegany -- nothing else keeps people around for more than a day -- and that the government has done worse. An 8,000-seat amphitheater in the state park on which $1.4 million spent was completed last fall but hasn't been used for a performance.
 
 Still, county officials took a risk on Rocky Gap by contributing $4.5 million in borrowed money -- nearly twice as much with interest -- for its construction. The results weren't what they anticipated. Fees collected from the resort, they thought, would cover the annual payment of about $425,000, but the county has ended up handling two-thirds of the bill itself because the lodge isn't doing well enough.
 
 At that rate, it would take 50 years for Allegany to recoup its investment.
 
 "If we ever get paid back, it'll be a couple generations," said Jerry Frantz, the county's finance director.
 
 State Sen. John J. Hafer, a Western Maryland Republican, doesn't consider the resort an economic engine so much as an example of unrealized potential.
 
 "Up to now it's been a losing proposition," he said.
 
 Kelly is irritated that Maryland Economic Development Corp., the agency that developed the resort, did not invite local contractors to bid this year on the $4 million project to expand Rocky Gap's conference space and enclose its pool in an effort to attract bigger groups and lengthen its season. The successful bidder is from Frederick.
 
 Hans F. Mayer, executive director of the development corporation, said he needed companies to guarantee a price before the final drawings were ready, and no business in Allegany is large enough to take that risk.
 
 It's essential to finish the project quickly to help the hotel, he said. Rocky Gap might be hurting for business overall, but it's had to turn away groups for lack of space at peak times.
 
 "I think the complaint is a little overdone," Mayer said.
 
 People reaping direct benefits from Rocky Gap, at least, are very glad it opened. The impact of the place ripples out in unusual ways.
 
 "We have ... over 300 works of art out there," said Suzanne Donazetti, a Cumberland painter who coordinates the effort by the Allegany Area Art Alliance to keep the walls covered. "They sell like hotcakes because there are so many people from all over who come and see it."
 
 Guests have bought 400 pieces since the display first went up a year ago. She has sold half a dozen of her large copper-canvas works, and nearly as many people have approached her about commissions because they saw her art there.
 
 Donazetti, who moved to Cumberland from New Mexico two years ago and sells her work nationwide, said the operation is more successful than most galleries she has been involved with. The regular art auctions at the hotel are a bonus.
 
 The lodge is on Interstate 68, two to 2 1/2 hours from Baltimore, Washington and Pittsburgh, so the range of potential customers is relatively wide.
 
 "To the artists out here, it's just revitalized this whole area," Donazetti said.
 
 The resort is also important to dozens of suppliers, many in Cumberland. Landis Office Center restocks supplies there three times a week. Western Maryland Distributing Co. brings in the beer, more now than when the hotel opened. Mel's Business Systems, a computer-solutions company, counts Rocky Gap as one of its 10 largest customers.
 
 "Rocky Gap has really contributed to a lot of local companies, us being one of them, thank God," said Debbie Mathew, director of marketing at Mel's.
 
 Miller, owner of Western Maryland Adventures, has her office in the hotel and employs 13 people. She hires the services of 25 guide, outfitter and shuttle companies. Thousands of customers have spent more than $200,000 to go rappelling, kayaking, night hiking, fly fishing and orienteering in and around the 3,000-acre state park.
 
 "I could not be more pleased with how business has been this year," said Miller, a lifelong county resident.
 
 Lee Schwartz, who owns the Book Center in downtown Cumberland and operates the hotel's gift shop, says business is brisk whenever Rocky Gap has guests. He's not making tons of money, but it's profitable.
 
 "The summer's been good because they've had good occupancy," he said. "It was a tough winter. ... The biggest nut they've got to crack is what do you do December, January, February, March."
 
 There's no skiing to draw in winter-sports enthusiasts. The pool is warm-weather only. From May to November, three-quarters of the rooms are filled, but the cold weather cuts into business so much that the average occupancy rate year-round is slightly less than 55 percent. The resort needs about 60 percent to break even.
 
 Tim Grambley, Rocky Gap's general manager, says he's confident that he will fill more of those rooms when the pool is enclosed by glass and the conference space is enlarged to accommodate bigger groups. The work should be finished by June.
 
 "We think we can take business levels in the next five years up by about 50 percent by having that additional space," said Grambley, who works for Crestline Hotels and Resorts, which took over Rocky Gap's management last year. "We will well more than break even if we go up 50 percent."
 
 Fiedler, Cumberland's mayor, thinks people shouldn't judge the resort's performance by typical resort standards because the point was to help Allegany County.
 
 The county's unemployment rate was close to 12 percent a decade ago, hovered at 9 percent when Rocky Gap opened and is now bouncing between 5 percent and 6 percent, an improvement he thinks is partly a result of the resort's influence.
 
 "Did we ever expect that Rocky Gap was going to be a major, major economic success?" he asks. "No. If it was, Marriott would have built it. As an economic development program, I think it's been a tremendous success."
 
 The people trying to reinvent Allegany County as a tourism destination see Rocky Gap as an integral part of their efforts and, ultimately, a beneficiary.
 
 Dave Williams, president of McClarran & Williams, a marketing and communications firm in Cumberland, thinks the area has enough attractions built and being built to capitalize on the weekend getaway market. Besides Rocky Gap, there's the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad, the new Canal Place shops downtown and the western end of the C&O Canal, which will offer water rides in five years once its reconstruction is finished.
 
 The problem has been coordination. In 1989, when the area made its first big push for tourism, people worked together to draw 200,000 visitors. For years afterward, the organizers running attractions operated independently, didn't spend as much on marketing and didn't get growth.
 
 Williams said the effort was re-energized when the county won state approval this year to increase its hotel-motel tax from 5 percent to 8 percent.
 
 The proceeds are going to the new tourism coordinators, who have spent $60,000 on print, radio and television ads in the Washington suburbs to lure people westward this fall. Potential visitors have downloaded more than 100,000 pages on the slick tourism Web site -- www.mdmountainside.com -- since it was revamped last month. (A typical month last fall had less than a tenth as much activity.)
 
 Williams says the tourism campaign is a local way to make state funds work effectively. Rocky Gap helps bring people to Allegany, and the more Allegany markets itself, the better off Rocky Gap and all the other attractions helped by taxpayer money will be.
 
 "If the community's up to it, we're going to recover this investment and we're going to be much better off because these things were done," he said. "Regardless of your opinion on the original investments, we'd be double foolish to walk away from them."
 
 
 ------
 Copyright (c) 2003, The Baltimore Sun
 
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