Off the grid doesn't mean sleepy, quiet

No Name Key has never had electricity, but there is static between its roughly 40 neighbors.

NO NAME KEY - "For sale" signs bring anxiety in No Name Key.

Potential buyers dreaming of solitude and coconuts are forced to choose. The decision can determine what neighbors will shun them.

And quickly new residents realize the peaceful tropical island they longed for was poisoned years ago over electricity - or lack of it. Now the roughly 40 homeowners are caught between solar power and rain cisterns or grid electricity and public water.

It has been four years since a major lawsuit. But its undercurrent is fiercely felt. The sleepy island has become a symbol of a larger fight over the solitude of the old Keys and the strip malls and traffic development that have overrun today's Keys.

Hallett and Linda Douville moved to No Name Key in 1990, guessing the electricity issue would help the island hold out to development the longest. They fear grid power is a welcome mat for developers.

David Eaken's family has been fighting for grid power since it bought property almost 40 years ago. It spearheaded a lawsuit along with nearly 30 other residents, to bring grid power to the island, spending thousands of dollars before it was dismissed in 2003 for lack of preparation.

He calls the solar group pious and their lifestyle "a big, green lie."

The dispute was acrimonious, say the Douvilles.

Still, it's tough to be angry on No Name Key. Life here is simple and woodsy - about three-quarters of the way to Key West from the mainland and well off U.S. 1, the highway that connects the island chain. Key deer, small and endangered, scamper about.

The islanders, mostly retirees and part-time residents, are as eccentric as the land itself. One woman refers to it as a "clothing optional island," and ventures naked to her mailbox daily. Children are as rare as power lines, and flip-flops are like uniforms.

Solar panels cover almost every roof, although many also supplement those with generators - a contentious subject. Residents who use them say they can't live without air conditioning.

Solar-powered residents say they manage just fine without cooled air.

Grid power won't necessarily bring development. It's difficult to build here with 70 percent of the island, about 820 acres, protected as part of the National Key Deer Refuge. Building is dicey on the remaining land because of zoning rules.

Most months, Eaken and others produce more energy than they need. Because they aren't connected to the power grid, they can't sell it back.

"The only way to make an impact, outside the walls of your home, is to be connected to the grid in order to sell back the wasted energy produced on high-solar energy days," says Eaken, a 36-year-old officer with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission.

On the flip side, he spends about $700 a month on diesel fuel to run his generator for air conditioning. He worries of the potential dangers brought by storing vast amounts of fossil fuel.

If solar residents don't want the connection to the main power grid, they can cut the line, but "give us the option," he argues.

But the island's solar energy enthusiasts were outraged at the thought of their chunk of paradise getting hooked up to the grid.

Mick Putney is a 78-year-old retired university sociology professor with a white ponytail, beard and wire-rim glasses. He spent nearly two years designing and building the 2,000-square-foot home that he and his wife Alicia moved to in 1992.

Solar energy more than adequately powers his two computers, printer, televisions, refrigerator, dishwasher, "the whole disaster," he says. He points proudly to the rusty green generator in his workshop, which hasn't run in five years.

"We kind of take pride in not having a working generator. It's sort of a solar macho thing," he says.

Putney and others have formed a cliquish circle against an outside world filled with pavement and traffic.

One new resident wanted street lights, Linda Douville says in disbelief.

She says "it's a constant battle with new people that come in who want electricity to make them realize we're out here for a reason."

[Last modified October 27, 2007, 23:59:26]