Oregon

Irene Gilbert.

The 76-year-old retired state employee, former gun store owner and avid elk hunter from La Grande, Oregon, is on a mission to keep turbines and transmission towers from blighting the rural landscape. She has filed more challenges to energy projects — 15 in all, including lawsuits — than anyone in the state, according to Oregon’s Department of Energy.

“I kind of have a reputation,” Gilbert said.

“I figure I can lose a thousand cases,” Gilbert said. “Even if it doesn’t look like it, I have made a difference.”

She argued against the wind farm before the Oregon Energy Facility Siting Council, which has ultimate authority over whether major pieces of infrastructure like wind farms, solar projects, power plants and transmission lines get built. She sent a letter to the governor’s office stating she would sue and make all of the state’s dealings with the energy company public along the way.

That wind farm never materialized. The company backed out in 2013, citing poor market conditions.

“We were successful in stopping that,” she said. “The company would say that it was a financial decision. I think it was more than that.” (The company told OPB and ProPublica in a statement that it was “the lack of strong commercial prospects.”)