ROBERT PIERCE
• Leader & Times
Debate continues on the establishment of wind energy in Seward County, and Dec. 8, the county’s Planning Commission heard from leaders from Invenergy, as well as several locals speaking out against the project.
The feedback was part of a public hearing concerning a conditional use permit (CUP) for wind turbines in northeast Seward County, and the hearing started with Invenergy officials talking about the benefits of approving the permit.
Company representative Jana Matthews said the permit application was fully in compliance with the county’s zoning regulations. She likewise said Invenergy in its history has developed 121 wind projects which generate a total of 19 gigawatts of power capacity.
“These projects come with large economic investments to the areas they are developed in,” she said. “In 2024 alone, Invenergy generated over $500 million in economic impact to those regions where our projects are developed. In addition, we also donated almost $4 million to charitable-based organizations, including many organizations across Seward County.”
In addition to its exploits in wind energy, Matthews said Invenergy has likewise developed the first utility scale operational solar project in Kansas.
“These nearly 700 megawatts of power generated from these project is enough to power 221,000 American homes while creating dozens of full-time operations and maintenance jobs across the state,” she said. “The local wages, the tax revenue and the payments to landowners are all tangible costs that benefit the residents of Kansas.”
The proposed local 1,200-megawatt wind project would be located in Seward, Meade and Gray counties, with about 150 megawatts located in Seward County.
“The entire project can power roughly 480,000 homes,” Invenergy’s Bryce Campbell said. “There’s 12,000 participating acres in the northeastern part of the county representing approximately 40 private landowners who have signed voluntary wind lease agreements with Invenergy.”
Campbell said less than 1 percent of the total land area in Seward County will be impacted during operations, and this means farmers and ranchers can continue their normal operations with minimal impact from the project.
“Once in operation, the project is expected to generate roughly $46 million between contribution dollars and property taxes, and that is for Seward County specifically over the lifetime of the project, which we’re assuming to be 40 years,” he said.
Campbell said Invenergy is proposing up to 22 potential turbines in the county, as well as other infrastructure.
“We’ve proposed underground connection lines, which would connect the turbines together en route to a substation east in Meade County,” he said. “We’ve also proposed nine miles of new access roads, which would connect existing county roads to new turbine locations.”
Campbell said Invenergy plans for a few project substations, and overhead transmission lines would connect those substations together.
“We also plan on having a couple of operating meteorological towers used to gather wind speeds and collect other data that’s necessary for the operations of the project,” he said. “We also plan on having a couple aircraft detection lighting system towers (ADLS), a great new technology that minimizes the amount of time those red lights are on at night.”
Once in operation, Campbell said the entire project will support about 16 full-time operations and maintenance jobs
“These are skilled roles like wind technicians that can attract and keep young professionals in Southwest Kansas,” he said.
Matthews said in the project’s first 10 years, Invenergy is looking to contribute nearly $7 million to the county and local school districts, with more to come after that.
“In year 11, Thresher would begin paying the assessed property tax values which would provide additional revenue to the county through that avenue,” she said.
In prior discussions this year, many concerns were raised about possible decommissioning of the project. Matthews said Invenergy anticipates entering into an agreement with the county for this matter.
“This would ensure Thresher is responsible for the full decommissioning of the project, including the removal of turbines, access road collection lines and foundations to a depth of four feet,” she said. “This agreement is also backed by a financial security to ensure the county does not bear any cost or liability for the decommissioning process.”
Audience members were then invited to speak about their concerns about the project. First to speak was county resident Neal Coffey, who said he was against the project for a number of reasons, including the negative visual aspects of a wind farm.
“They’re just ugly,” he said. “They destroy the vision of our Kansas sunsets and sunrises. The negative economic impacts on the power market, I could speak on that for an extended period of time, outlining how wind generation will eventually drive price increases of electricity to the consumers. There’s the environmental impacts of the light and noise pollution as well as the yet to be understood impact of the electrical fields generated around each that interferes with human as well as wildlife.”
Coffey said he did not want to infringe on landowners’ rights to capitalize on economic returns offered by wind generation developers, but he felt the opportunity must be taken into consideration of the negative impacts wind generation has on adjoining landowners who may or may not choose to participate in these programs.
“It’s because of that impact we need to focus on ways to minimize the impact on adjoining landowners,” he said. “The biggest key is by maximizing the separation of the wind turbines from existing residences.”
Seward County Commissioner Todd Stanton, whose property is near the area the project would be put, said more input should be allowed before a decision is made.
“One of the most frequent questions I encounter about this process is why the county administrator and commission chair have gone out of their way to limit public input to this hearing only,” he said. “The members of P and Z need to be asking themselves the same questions in relation to your part of this process. Are you being steered? Why has the process been structured so you have as little public input as possible? Why is instruction on the public record released a mere six days before this meeting?”
Likewise, Stanton said guidelines for the Dec. 8 meeting were only made available less than a week before the meeting.
“In those, we find curious statements, including a request that complex or voluminous material be summarized with implication being they won’t be thoroughly studied immediately after this,” he said. “We are told materials received after Dec. 1 or 2, the date this guideline was released, won’t be read prior to the meeting. If you openly state materials submitted to the public record will not be read or are unlikely to be read, how do you vote on this CU until you’ve completed proper review of all materials presented to you.”
In April, the Planning Commission began discussions to review and revise the county’s outdated wind zoning regulations, and Stanton said if that process was completed, that news had not been made to the public or the county commission.
“In fact, it appears to have been abandoned,” he said. “The public and this commissioner on behalf of his constituents would like to know why that process was suspended or abandoned.”
Stanton attended the April meeting, and he said he heard a local landowner and businessman instructing a Planning Commission member on what to say during the meeting.
“A few minutes into that meeting, that member of this board parroted nearly verbatim what he head been instructed to say,” he said. “That should leave the public and yourselves with questions regarding the required objectivity of this board.”
Lastly, Stanton said a decision from the Planning Commission would likely directly impact the next 40 years of Seward County.
“Please consider that as you deliberate as well as how you will individually be remembered by a public which is expressing certain opposition to this project,” he said.
Local resident Ryan Martin said few, if any, in the audience would purchase property with wind turbines even if those turbines were located as much as 4,000 feet from their property.
“We chose to live in this part of the world,” he said. “We sacrificed mountain views, river streams, beaches and all the other beauties just for one thing – a beautiful sunrise and an unobscured sunset.”
With turbines obscuring those sunrises and sunset, Martin said the premise of green energy is a false one and is totally unacceptable.
“I strongly believe in personal property rights, but when property rights and your decision destroy the value, the livability and the resale saleability of my property, that is a problem,” he said.
County resident Fred Bloom asked how much of the energy produced would stay in Seward County.
“It’s all going to be shipped off,” he said. “That’s why the transmission lines are there. It may give a little bit of energy, but CMS or Southern Pioneer has to be that. That cost of energy is higher than what they have now because it’s not reliable energy.”
Matthews said no matter where connections are made to the grid, transmission will take power bilaterally.
“While you may not be seeing a specific impact all the time here, you get the benefit if there is new transmission to receive power from other regions as well,” she said.
Seward County Development Corporation Director Eli Svaty, though, said he feels the project could be good for the local economy, and he referred to a similar attempt in the 1990s to bring wind energy to the county.
“Even when I started in 2019, people were still talking about the impact that had on our county on economic development,” he said. “The companies would’ve come here, but chose not to because of the welcome they didn’t receive.”
Svaty said Invenergy has followed the county’s rules and guidelines that have been in place for the last 10 to 15 years.
“They did what they were supposed to, and now it’s our job to approve that,” he said. “Everyone who’s looking, all the companies that are going to Ford County, to other counties across the state and the country, they’re looking for counties that want investment, that want growth, that want opportunity. We have a responsibility when companies meet our guidelines, meet our requirements to match them with that.”
Svaty also said a decision could affect future growth in the county.
“We need energy, we need projects, we need the investment, not just for this one, but to attract all of those that are currently looking right now,” he said.
Resident Steve Merz said wind turbines have a very negative impact on livestock and crops.
“In Australia, they’re doing extensive studies on damages to cattle, the feet of cattle based upon the vibration from these machines and from the electricity being generated around them,” he said.
Merz likewise said local land percolates with water going up and down constantly.
“Our crops, our trees suck the water back up out of there,” he said. “These wind towers occupy a 200-foot diameter platform of concrete that’s about 20 feet think. That concrete has approximately 200 tons of rebar in it.”
Merz said if turbines are taken down, this will leave as much as 16 feet of concrete underground.
“That concrete is going to create a dam that’s going to disturb the percolation our soil needs to survive,” he said.
After closing the public hearing, Planning Commission members met in an executive session to discuss what steps to take next, and Chair Jairo Vazquez gave the audience the findings of that discussion.
“After talking amongst ourselves and seeing the amount of public comment, we were considering pushing this back a little bit so we have time to understand all the information that was given to us and make the best decision for this county and everybody here,” he said.
The Planning Commission is scheduled to host a follow-up special meeting at 7 p.m. Dec. 29 in the commission chambers in the Seward County Administration Building.
