ELLY GRIMM

    • Leader & Times

EDITOR’S NOTE — This is the second in a series of stories on the recent release of the Conditional Use Permit proposal between Seward County and Thresher Wind.

The proposal for the Thresher Wind Farm agreement was officially released last week, and many people in Seward County have been making their voices heard about the project since discussion about it began. 

One of the voices that has been sharing support of the project has been citizen John Jacobs.

“To be honest, it’s something I’m not real crazy about looking at out there. But the way I look at it is, I own property, and I don’t want anyone who is not a landowner telling me what I can and cannot do with my land,” Jacobs said. “The way I look at this deal is, if the landowner signs up for it and wants it on their land, I feel like they should get it. If the neighbors don’t want it, they’re welcome to feel that, and they may have to deal with looking at the wind turbine. But it’s on the owner’s property not the neighbor’s, so I don’t feel like they’ve got anything to be complaining about.”

Overall, Jacobs said he would be okay with such a project in Seward County.

“I’m actually in the project. I’ve got land in the project, and I am signed up for it,” Jacobs said. “We were approached probably 20 years ago or close to that, and this project’s changed hands in that time. I think this project’s on its third name now, and we’ve been in it from the very beginning. From what I’ve been told, it’s one thing to produce the electricity, but on the other hand, you’ve got to have a transmission line to sell it to somebody, and from what I’ve heard, that is a big thing that has been holding this project up all these years. I’ve lived in Seward County pretty much my whole life, and I’m 69 years old now, and like I said, I own property. I live in the area where they’re you know wanting to do this project, I’m going to have them all around my house. I had visited with a couple county commissioners in the last six to eight months on this deal.”

Jacobs added he feels the project could bring in needed growth to the area. 

“If this brings some revenue into Seward County, it will be great because if National Beef folds up and leaves Liberal, Liberal is going to turn into a ghost town, and I’ve seen that happen to other towns about the same size as Liberal,” Jacobs said. “Look at how Garden City has grown in the last eight to 10 years compared to Liberal. Look at how Dodge City has grown compared to Liberal in the last eight to 10 years. It’s because of businesses coming in there, and I think Seward County needs to kind of wake up to a little bit of this stuff. I know a town where in Oklahoma where my brother-in-law lived, and it was a town about the size of Liberal that had a large tire manufacturing plant in it, and it had been there for years. Eventually, B.F. Goodrich decided they didn’t want to be there anymore. We go to that town from town time to time, and that town is half of what it was when that plant was there. It’s like a ghost town. I realize that this wind farm isn’t going to employ a lot of people if it makes the people that own the property and give wind generators, but if it puts money in their pockets, and part of that money is spent in Seward County. Every business in Seward County is going to benefit that.”

Jacobs said he feels there are some other positive benefits from such a project.

“It’s going to employ some people, so it’s going to raise the population some, and it’s going to it’s going to create jobs. And like I said, I think overall, it will help the economy,” Jacobs said. “And I realize these windmills are taller than a pump jack on an oil or a gas well, but I don’t find those real pretty to look at either. And like I said earlier, I don’t think people should be told what they can and cannot do on their property – if I would have been 100 percent against it, I wouldn’t have got on board with it from the get-go. But that is just my opinion.”

Jacobs added he feels people in the county should also be sure to educate themselves on the project.

“I know one of the big concerns raised was about wildlife and how all the moving parts on a wind generator are up so high – a bird could fly into it, but any regular four-legged animal is not going to get hurt by a wind farm, which is totally opposite from a pump jack on an oil or gas well. I’ve actually seen pictures of where deer and other animals have gotten their heads and body parts torn off from a pump jack, and that isn’t something that will happen with a wind farm,” Jacobs said. “Something else I noticed while sitting in on the commission meetings was a lot of the people who were complaining about it were people who did not own enough property to where they were ever going to get a wind generator on their property. With that, I almost came to the conclusion that a lot of it was basically ‘If I can’t have one, I’m going to do what I can to keep my neighbor from getting one.’ There are a lot of different ways to look at it, but again, my main point is, if you own the property and if it’s what you want to do, I feel like that’s your choice, and people who aren’t paying the property taxes on your property shouldn’t be the ones telling you what to do. Something else people brought up was other wind farms that are 30 years old, and they’re saying the lifespan of one of these projects is only 20 to 25 years. Those projects that were mentioned were 30 years old, and had gotten to the point where everything was worn out, and whoever owned the wind farm just walked away from it and let everything fall apart. However, it’s in the contract the developers can’t do that here – it is right in the contract that everything that is not buried at least six feet deep has to be completely removed from the property.”

Jacobs said he hopes the people will have a voice about the project.

“I obviously can’t say how it will turn out, but I hope people have the chance to make themselves heard when it comes to something big like this,” Jacobs said.