Kosciusko County Farm Bureau and Indiana Agricultural Law Foundation will host an informational meeting on commercial wind energy development for landowners, local officials and other interested citizens April 15.
Speakers at the meeting will include Jimmy Bricker, Purdue Extension educator and director, Benton County; and Justin Schneider, staff attorney with Indiana Farm Bureau.
Benton County is home to Indiana's only currently operational wind farm. Since 2004, the county, along the Illinois border, has been the site of several major wind energy development projects. Bricker will discuss lessons learned from these projects.
Schneider will discuss concerns with easements and leases for commercial wind energy development.
In December 2008, wind energy company J.D. Great Lakes Wind erected a test tower in Kosciusko County, near Milford, to assess whether the county is a good location for a wind energy harvesting project. The tower will collect data until December this year. Wind energy companies typically lease space in fields in which they build wind towers from the landowners.
According to a press release from Kosciusko County Farm Bureau, representatives of J.D. Great Lakes Wind have been invited to the meeting.
The meeting also will include a question-and-answer session.
"It's just going to be beneficial for people to get answers to the questions they have in general," said Kosciusko County Farm Bureau President John Goon.
Goon said, when people hear the phrase "wind farm," often they have concerns about noise and danger to wild birds caused by the spinning wind turrets.
"A wind farm in this area won't look at all like pictures they might have seen of California with row after row after row," Goon said.
He said advances in engineering have all but eliminated the noise made by the towers and the danger to wildlife. He said the meeting will be a good opportunity for people to seek answers to their concerns.
Goon said wind harvesting operations hold potential economic benefits for individual landowners and counties through lease payments and boosting tax revenues.
"It's a good thing to make value added to a piece of property without much impact and it could bring a lot of tax income to the county," Goon said. "We're excited about the opportunity for the county as far as being on the forefront of technology."
The meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. at the Shrine Building on the Kosciusko County Fairgrounds, Warsaw. Refreshments will be provided. No RSVP is necessary and Farm Bureau membership is not required to attend.
For more information, contact Goon at 574-453-0409.
