About 150 people from 13 Indiana counties and one Michigan county gathered Wednesday in the Shrine Building at the Kosciusko County Fairgrounds to talk about wind power.
Most in attendance were farmers or other land owners interested in hearing how wind power development in the area could affect them.
Wind power development companies build wind turbines which produce electricity that the companies sell. Commercial wind turbines are usually 300 to 400 feet tall and are usually built in fields or places with consistent wind. Companies lease the land on which they build the turbines from the land owners.Last year, the U.S. became the No. 1 wind-producing country in the world. Indiana ranks 21st in the country in terms of wind, but has the fastest growing wind industry.
Justin Schneider, Indiana Farm Bureau staff attorney, said the reason for the increase has been the demand from surrounding states to buy renewable energy. Indiana, he said, is ideally located to transfer wind power to the electric power grid quickly and cheaply.
JW Great Lakes Wind LLC, a wind energy company, built a test tower near Milford in December to assess whether an area in northern Kosciusko County may be a good location for a wind farm.
Schneider and Jim Bricker, Benton County Purdue Extension agriculture educator, spoke about dealing with wind developers as a county and personally.
"I want to make sure when you walk out of here tonight, if you are approached by a wind developer, you can make a good decision," Schneider said.
Bricker and Schneider said the installation of wind power operations can benefit land owners with extra income from land that, in most cases, they can continue to farm, and can benefit counties by increasing the local tax base. However, both also said there are many details that need to be addressed in the process of dealing with wind developers.
"This is a great opportunity, but there are a lot of risks," said Schneider. "You need to reduce what risks you can."
Benton County is the home of Indiana's only currently operating commercial wind farms. The county has two wind farms. When complete, the farms will have a combined total of 590 wind turrets and about $1.35 billion in investment from BP Wind Energy North America Inc. and Orion Energy LLC, the companies building the wind-harvesting operations. In March, several Kosciusko County officials, land owners and community leaders traveled to Benton County to see the wind operations there.
Benton County does not have a county planning office, so Bricker served as that county's pointman through the four-year process of establishing the wind power industry there. Bricker said it is important for counties to develop ordinances to regulate how and where wind energy operations can be established. He said these ordinances protect land owners and the county. He also said it's important for counties to make detailed agreements with wind developers to include bonds for the decommissioning of towers and repairs to county infrastructure after construction of the turbines.
"You're going to have to live with a county under construction for a year," Bricker said. "Just deal with it. Benton County has not spent any money to repair anything."
Bricker said his county provided tax abatements to wind developers who agreed to pay annual fees until their abatements ran out. When the current abatements expire for the wind developers in Benton County, Bricker said the developers will annually pay $3.7 million in taxes.
Bricker said individual land owners in Benton County who leased land to the wind developers collect more than $2 million per year in lease payments.
Schneider said, in order for individual land owners to truly benefit from having a wind turbine on their property, they need to be active in the process of creating a contract with the developer.
"The money you're getting from one of these projects will not compensate you if something gets really screwed up," Schneider said. "Get a lawyer. I think people can do most of the negotiating themselves, but at the end of the day, you need someone else to look at it."
Besides hiring a lawyer, Schneider suggested land owners partner with neighbors and negotiate together with wind developers. He said it's important for land owners to make sure that any concerns they have are addressed in the contract, in writing.
Tony Zimmerman, owner of the land in Milford where JW Great Lakes Wind constructed their test tower, also spoke to the crowd. Zimmerman said he and about 15 other area land owners have been working on contracts with Great Lakes for about four months.
He said Great Lakes is focusing on the area between CRs 800N and 1350N and between Ind. 15 and Ind. 19 as the initial target area for a wind project.
Zimmerman said the contract process has been going well, but he is working to get more specific details included. He said most of his neighbors have been supportive of having a wind farm in the area.
"Of course, there are always those who are against it," he said, "but, most have been pretty agreeable."
Devon Hochstetler, Nappanee, owns property on the north side of Kosciusko County, which he said is ideal for wind collection.
"I have trouble keeping shingles on my roof," he said.
Hochstetler said he came to Wednesday's meeting with questions about the legal issues involved in leasing land for a wind tower. After the meeting he said he felt that most of his basic questions had been answered.
"I think it was very informative and presented really well," said Hochstetler.
The meeting was sponsored by Kosciusko County Farm Bureau.
KCFB President John Goon said, "Since there's a possible wind farm site in this county, there seems to be some interest. I think a lot of people left here with a lot of good information."
