Jerry Bohnen
Contributing Editor
Some residents near Piedmont want to block the development of a proposed $470 million wind farm and they have the support of one Canadian County Commissioner.
Commissioner Phil Carson has sided with those fighting the planned Canadian Hills Wind project proposed by Apex Wind Energy. The company wants to build the 300 megawatt wind farm along Northwest Expressway just outside the Oklahoma City limits. During a county commission meeting in El Reno this week, where opponents asked the commission to adopt a moratorium on wind farm construction, Carson said the wind turbines should not be east of Highway 81. That drew applause from the audience, according to the Yukon Review.
The project is already underway and will involve hundreds of wind towers. Realtor Pam Suttles is leading the opposition and contends the towers will lead to a distressed housing market in the area and also cause health problems for residents.
“There’s got to be a line drawn in the sand,”Carson said, but he’s not sure what the commission can legally do to stop the construction project.
Mark Goodwin, President of Apex defends the project and maintains it will generate significant economic benefits for the area. He contends it will provide $2.4 million a year in tax revenue and also fulfill the energy needs of nearly 100,000 homes.
Apex Wind Energy is based in Charlottesville, Virginia and was founded in 2009.
People want green energy but somewhere else. They want jobs but don’t want the traffic or the building of new houses. These people need to wake up and be thankful that a company wants to be there and create new jobs in the area which will create tax money for the government.
Wind turbines are noisy and have massive shadow effect and none of the projects put up so far have any requirement to remove the wind turbines when they wear out. And everything wears out . So if they put them up make them put up the money to take them down , because the owner will be hard to find thirty years from now, just like the mine residual in eastern Oklahoma
Wind Energy, the biggest waste of money and land there ever has been. I live on the east side of 81 and the turbine farm built west of Concho is an eyesore unlike any I have ever seen. It’s up to the landowners that these charlatan energy producers seek leases from. When they asked me I told them “Hell No” That’s the only way you can prevent ruining a beautiful view. Look at what has happened in Canada. Canada decided to have a requirement for a certain amount of wind energy. Then the demand for coal was arbitrarily reduced and some coal power producers have shut down. Not only did their cost of energy go up by mandating wind, it also drove up the costs of coal, and natural gas power plants at the same time. And job creation from wind energy, facts don”t bear that out when the turbines are made in China. Just brilliant.
The community was up in arms a few years ago about location of the transmission line for wind energy. Now that landowners in the “community approved” path of the line attempt to recoup some of the production loss from the construction of the power line, the same “community” does not approve of the location of wind generators next to the Wind Energy Power Line.
A wind farm is not a risk to life, nor does it create an odor, it may create some noise, but so does the additional traffic of a housing development. It does not require additional roads, schools, water, sewer, or stormwater runoff. I would much rather look at a wind farm than a housing development, but to some individuals it is an eyesore. Would it still be an eyesore if that person was receiving a $4k/yr payment for each one of those turbines?
Due to the confidentiality of the wind energy contracts, we will never know their real amounts. Data from Windustry.org stated in 2005 Ok’s rate was an average of $4000/turbine/yr. With a spacing of 1 turbine /qtr, this amounts to $4K/yr income to the landowner. While there would be some loss of production due to access roads, the land still could be used for farm production.
I offer a solution to those of you opposed to wind production. A Conservation Easement. This easement allows a community to buy a property to prevent its development, and by covenant require it to remain in agricultural production in spite of development pressure. The value paid to the landowner is what he would realize if the land was developed. In the case of development this is somewhat difficult to predict due to economic factors. However with the nationwide production & distribution of energy, the wind energy contract is the value of the easement.
This conservation easement, if used to prevent building downstream of the SCS floodwater retarding structures would have saved the taxpayers over 12 million dollars in Canadian County alone. As floodplain board chair I tried to get this done, but the developers had too much clout.
I would suggest those who are against the wind farm form an assessment district to collect additional monies at tax time and deposit it in an account to pay those landowners who were prevented from contracting for turbines. Apex has proposed to build 120 turbines. At $4K/turbine this would amount to $480K or more if a denser spacing was determined to be efficient. If we divide this amount over 1000 households in the Piedmont area opposed to the wind farm, it would only be approximately $480/yr in addition to taxes.
Tax deductibility would have to be determined. Are these individuals ready to commit to paying their neighbors over $40/month for the next 50 years because they do not want to look at a wind turbine? Is that country view worth another $40/month?
Personally, I am not able to realize any benefit to the Wind Energy power line, the community raised a fuss and OG&E relocated the original line that was to cross part of my land diagonally. The income from that easement would have allowed me to enjoy my retirement, but due the “new inhabitants” of the county not wanting to see a power line, I will be working forever. Due to the influx of these “new inhabitants” my taxes have tripled the over the last 10 years so they could have new schools for their children and paved roads so that their 4wd SUV’s won’t get dirty on our old shale roads. I receive no benefit from those schools, and I have to rebuild our trucks more often due to the potholes in that rough asphalt. The shale required only minimal maintenance and didn’t wear out our tractor tires. Our Tractor tires wear out twice as fast on that asphalt. At least once a week I am nearly run down by a speeding SUV headed to school while the driver has a phone stuck in her ear. Due to the housing developments in this area, we cannot have aerial spraying performed. We lose some of the crop to our wheel tracks from the ground sprayers we must now use to prevent drift onto smaller tracts. With Higher costs of fuel, feed, tires, equipment, & every other input required in farming and livestock production, the landowner must act on every option available, or quit. During the summer of 2008, one of our local farmers was contacted by the Piedmont Police because a “new inhabitant” complained he was creating too much dust while disking his wheat field in order to get his land ready for planting.
In closing I would like to say that while the county welcomes new development, the “new inhabitants” need to realize their change to the environment comes with a price that we established landowners are tired of paying. If that country view means so much to them, then let them pay for it or let us attempt to make a living from our land in peace. Either reimburse us for the loss of income or buy us out.