U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander is urging Tennesseans to oppose a proposed wind farm in Cumberland County.

Alexander says the proposed wind farm would tarnish the beauty of the Cumberland County mountains. The Apex Clean Energy wind farm would contain twenty-three wind turbines. Alexander says the blinking lights would be seen for miles and called the amount of energy they would generate “puny.”

Alexander used a picture of a wind farm from Palm Springs California as a comparison and said if a wind turbine is put up they are hard to take down.

The wind farm would be less than 10 miles from Cumberland Mountain State Park and less than five miles from Ozone Falls Scenic State Natural Area.

The Cumberland County wind project will be just the second in Tennessee, and the largest. It nearly triples the energy output of Buffalo Mountain Windfarm, built in 2000 by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) about 30 miles northwest of Knoxville.