San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
An ill wind is blowing along the Devils River
Residents upset at massive power-generation plan
COMSTOCK — Exactly how the Devils River got its forbidding name is lost to history, but there is little doubt the harsh terrain and fierce natives who once reigned here played a role.
“It is far from any habitation, in a barren waste surrounded by hostile Comanches, but it is a beautiful place,” one early visitor noted.
A century and a half later, the natural beauty remains and the rushing, spring-fed Devils owns the reputation as the last unspoiled river in Texas.
Its milky-green currents slide through a wilderness unmarred by settlements or commerce. The only disturbance is the occasional blast of a low-flying Air Force training jet.
But all is not well here. A plan by a billionaire Chinese industrialist named Sun Guangxin to build a huge wind farm is causing seismic upset among longtime landowners.
“It’s a total crisis. We depend on ecotourism. The turbines will affect the deer. They kill birds. And we’re on the flyway for the monarch butterflies,” said Alice Ball Strunk, 63, whose greatgrandfather Claude Hudspeth began acquiring the ranchland in 1905.
The project by Sun’s GH America Energy also threatens to disrupt critical pilot training missions at Laughlin AFB in nearby Del Rio.
Last week, the obscure West Texas energy project was thrust into the national spotlight when a right-wing news commentator denounced it as a threat to national security.
Since 2015, Sun, who made much of his wealth in Chinese real estate and energy, has purchased about 140,000 acres in the back country northwest of Del Rio.
It’s unclear how many turbines Sun potentially could build there. He already is moving forward with the first phase, called the Blue Hills Wind Farm, a 51-turbine project on one northern holding.
His company also is exploring using some of the land for solar power projects.
Sun declined to respond to a list of questions sent to his representative in Texas.
700-foot turbines
This is a timeless place of prowling mountain lions, dark night sky and Indian pictographs in hidden caves.
Once sprinkled with sheep and goats, many of the large family ranches now are used only for hunting or have been acquired by real estate speculators.
Vast protected areas also belong to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, the Nature Conservancy, the Texas Agricultural Land Trust and private owners with conservation easements.
“In Texas, the Nature Conservancy is invested heavily in a lot of places, but nowhere more so than the Devils River,” said Jeff Francell, the conservancy’s director of land protection.
The main source of the pristine river surfaces in a lush grove of pecan and sycamore trees on Strunk’s ranch.
“What worries me is that the springs are on my place, and they own the next land over, about a half-mile away. The danger is that they will degrade the water,” Strunk said. “I just hate that they are going to industrialize right next door. The eye pollution, the lights, the noise. …”
The prospect of 700-foot-tall wind turbines sprouting on hilltops also worries officials at Laughlin, which trains 300 new pilots a year as one of three Air Force pilot training bases.
Col. Lee Gentile Jr., the base commander at Laughlin, declined to be interviewed.
A critical hurdle for the wind farm is for its backers to reach an agreement with military authorities on a plan to mitigate interference with flights from the air base.
Former base commander Dave Belote, now a mitigation specialist hired by GH America Energy, said agreements for foreign-owned projects typically include many security safeguards.
“You have to give the DoD (Department of Defense) access to the site and to the data stream anytime they ask for it. You also have to give the DoD prior notice of any foreign national who will be on the site,” he said.
Since Laughlin pumps an estimated $2 billion a year into Val
Critics say that plans by Chinese billionaire Sun Guangxin to build wind farms on 140,000 acres he owns in Val Verde County will threaten the Devils River and also interfere with Air Force pilot training.
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Verde County’s economy, elected officials are eyeing the proposed wind farm project with trepidation.
“My position, and probably the county’s, is that if it affects Laughlin Air Force Base, and hampers their ability to perform their mission, we are going to oppose it,” County Commissioner Beau Nettleton
said.
“I’m all for private property rights, but we have to protect the one thing that is the economic engine for Del Rio,” he added.
But because there are few legal or regulatory obstacles to such wind projects, even those built near a military base, there is little anyone can do if Sun decides to go k e e r n C l a o
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D e r y forward.
“Unfortunately, counties don‘t have the authority to regulate wind farms,” Nettleton said. “So we’re looking at legislation in the next session that would grant a county that authority on these type of projects that would have a direct effect on a military base’s ability to perform its mission.”
Apex of Texas rivers
Carter Smith, executive director of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, has spoken out against development in the area, about 200 miles west of San Antonio.
“The Lower Pecos and Devils River country represent one of the last true bastions of wilderness in our state,” he said, citing the department’s long-term efforts to preserve the area.
“Proposals to further intensively develop the area surrounding the Devils River run counter to many of the values that ranchers, conservationists, biologists and outdoor enthusiasts alike have labored long and hard to protect,” he added.
In 1988, the state bought 20,000 acres on the Devils River to create the Del Norte State Natural Area. In 2011, it added 18,000 acres to the south, which became the Dan A. Hughes State Natural Area.
The Devils River ends at the 57,000-acre Amistad National Recreation Area a few miles west of Del Rio.
TPWD aquatic biologist Chad Norris, whose specialty is springs, said the Devils represents “the apex of rivers in Texas.”
“Certainly the Comal and San Marcos are wonderful rivers, but they are pretty developed,” he said. “If there is any place in Texas that deserves preservation, it’s the undeveloped watershed of the Devils River.”
One of the large ranches acquired by Sun in Val Verde County, formerly called the Morning Star Ranch, is apparently being kept for his personal use. It has a high fence, a large hunting lodge and jet runway, and he reportedly visits periodically.
Members of the Devils River Conservancy, a group created 10 years ago to protect the area, are in regular communication with Sun’s representatives.
“We have talked to them about all kinds of alternatives. We’ve offered exit strategies. The one thing they have told us is that if the economics are not there, they won’t proceed,” Conservancy President Randy Nunns said.
“But in that case, they might just sell it to another developer, and it might end up as ranchettes. We would still oppose the country being carved up,” he said.
Security vulnerabilities
West Texas is a windy place, and Texas ranks first in the country for both operating wind energy projects and those under construction, according to the American Wind Energy Association.
The state has about 15,000 wind turbines spread among some 160 projects. Together they generate around 30,000 megawatts of power, enough to power 7.7 million homes, according to the trade association.
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