GUEST COLUMN, Todd Stanton, Seward County Commissioner, Dist. 1
Proposed wind farm development in Seward County has raised many concerns among citizens with advocates both for and against the development. Some basic information provided by County personnel or taken from a March 17 county commission meeting was reported in the Leader & Times of March 23. Not mentioned in the impressive series of articles was that among the citizen comments at the March 17 meeting, no one spoke in favor of the development. No one.
The March 17 county commission public work session was scheduled to discuss a possible consulting agreement with Kirkham Michael, a consultancy already employed for the county road and bridge department, regarding possible wind farm development in Seward County. Oddly, representatives of Invenergy took over the meeting and dropped multiple draft agreements on the commission apparently expecting to then discuss them. Customarily draft agreements are sent in advance of meetings.
The first phase of proposed wind development in Seward County is sited in the extreme northeast, one of the least populated parts of the county with the least number of resident landowners and as far from Liberal as possible. Is the location by design? At the March meeting, Invenergy presented a map of the proposed 12,000 acre development, known as Thresher Wind Enegery LLC, curiously lacking any road identifications other than Hwy 160 and the eastern and northern boundaries of the county. A company representative was asked if they had a map with county roads identified. The question was not answered except to say their map gave parcel boundaries (but no parcels are identified).
The wind has shifted significantly in the wind farm world. President Donald Trump is banning further offshore wind development, and it appears that onshore restrictions and an end to various taxpayer provided subsidies are coming via executive order or Secretary Wright and the Department of Energy. States are likewise acting including Arizona advancing legislation effectively banning wind farming; Idaho is in process of adopting excise taxes where an $800 million excise tax for a proposed 100 turbine farm will likely end it; and Oklahoma is now advancing legislation that will curtail, perhaps end, further wind development. People both in ‘red’ and ‘blue’ states have awoken to the realities of what has been called both the Green New Deal and Green New Scam. More proposed wind farms are now declined than proceed. This is tracked at the Renewable Rejection Database at RobertBryce.com. Nearly one third of US counties now have significant restrictions or bans on wind farming, up from a small number just a few years ago.
Wind farming in Seward County was first discussed by a commission now in the history books. One of those commissioners recently wrote me, “Like COVID, we learn after the fact. Fact is they are heavily subsidized, better to build base power that guarantees generation and not speculate on the outcome.”
In the March meeting, Invenergy’s handsomely paid spokesman, lawyer Alan Anderson, was critical of questions citing existing studies taking issue with any aspect of wind farming. Mr Anderson, adjunct faculty at KU’s law school, is vice chair of a law firm group which represents renewable energy developers in projects throughout the country. Invenergy claims a Seward County wind farm would lower local energy costs. Studies I have reviewed show just the opposite, especially when “renewables” mandates are in play. Other studies are on topics of great and grave concern to those living near these installations as well as the extreme danger to wildlife, avian in particular.
Seward has a very long way to go in considering this development. It’s planning and zoning regulations on wind farming are, in my view, outdated and require significant modification. A 2022 update is outdated and lacking in many areas with only one current county commissioner signatory to that. This view is shared by several members of the county Planning & Zoning board.
How energy generated here and sent out of area would lower local costs remains opaque. It is unclear if Invenergy or Thresher has applied to connect a proposed wind farm to the grid or how that would be done. This question was unanswered at the March meeting and Invenergy has not responded by press time to a subsequent request for a SPP Interconnection queue application number. Such an application has not been identified in the queue by a Pioneer and Southern Pioneer Electric manager who works with Federal Energy Regulation Commission matters. The connection permitting process takes four to five years from date of application, and current FERC regulations state that the majority of the cost of transmission lines will be paid for by local entities, meaning that costs of approximately $1 million per mile overhead and $2 million per mile underground could be passed along to the customer-owners of CMS Electric Cooperative and/or customers of Southern Pioneer Electric.
Since the energy generated here won’t be consumed locally, what’s this really all about? I don’t view this as a complicated issue nor does it hinge, as some such as Mr. Anderson claims, on the rights of landowners. There are only a few reasons anyone is considering this in Seward County and they all pertain to — money. There is also likely a side-helping of egos and photo-ops in play.
All energy development projects have a 10-year property tax abatement, meaning they pay no taxes for the first decade. What wind farm developers offer in place of those taxes is called a Contribution Agreement. The draft document makes currently unspecified payments commencing in 2029 (a date to almost assuredly to be pushed further into the future) to the county in lieu of taxes and is designed to cover costs any developer would be required to pay regardless of the tax abatement as well as financially induce (to use the polite term) people to agree to something onerous. Invenergy has already offered or made contributions directly to some local entities.
Some landowners, the majority not living on the land where towers are proposed, stand to make very large sums of money. The money paid to these landowners is supported, directly or indirectly, at least in part, by other taxpayers (you, dear reader) through subsidies. This also causes great strife between landowners. One local resident landowner opposed to this development told me he has already been threatened with massive litigation by an adjoining landowner.
I live on the northern boundary of the proposed development, a part of the county 99 percent of Seward County residents have never seen. I have zero interest in looking at wind towers for the rest of my life, having to contemplate the many side-affects of living near a wind farm, wondering when crop spray drift caused by the wind farm kills my entire farmstead or crops, or how many thousands of birds which visit the bird sanctuary I have spent 15 years growing directly under a major flyway will be killed or scared away. Wind farming despoils, if not destroys, God’s natural beauty, and no financial incentive will alter that reality. When I travel east or south through current wind farm country I cringe, my heart sinks, and I pray our residents and commissioners are wise to the pitfalls of looking for what can be perceived as a fast and easy buck but is neither.
Seward County rightly looks for economic development opportunities, but not all development is good or beneficial. This development only benefits a few while destroying our landscape, endangering our primary industry of agriculture, and presenting extreme danger to wildlife. Full consideration of this proposal cannot be covered in an article of this length but perhaps it will spur the soulful reflection of residents regarding a decision which will impact their children, grandchildren and likely great grandchildren.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR — Todd Stanton is a Seward County resident and County Commissioner for District 1 in which the proposed wind farm would be sited.
