The Crazies: The Cattleman, the Wind Prospector, and a War Out West

A new kind of range war roils a small town in this intricate debut account. Wall Street Journal reporter Gamerman recaps a zoning and development controversy in the picturesque Crazy Mountains region near Big Timber, Mont. On one side were Rick Jarrett, a debt-saddled cattle rancher worried about losing his land, and Marty Wilde, a wildcat wind prospector trying to develop a wind farm on Jarrett’s property. Opposing them were billionaire oilman Russell Gordy and other wealthy ranch owners whose mountain vistas and property values would be compromised, they insisted, by having 500-foot-tall turbines nearby. The conflict led to lawsuits and a court showdown that spotlighted the muddled ideologies and class politics of renewable energy, with desperate but traditionalist ranch families haphazardly aligned with progressive environmentalists while squaring off against plutocratic NIMBYs—who championed pristine wilderness aesthetics over economic development, bemoaned the threat posed to eagles and bats by the turbine blades, and cited the potential human health risks of the whooshing noise and flickering shadows they produce. Gamerman’s lush prose evokes the imprint of the harsh, beautiful landscape on its more hard-bitten inhabitants. (“The wind was a steady force that was always working against you.... The wind was as much a part of Rick’s legacy as the land itself. People were buying wind? Well, goddammit, he had wind to sell.”) It’s a captivating saga. (Jan.)