Plans of Huge Wind Turbines Jolt Kansas
October 14, 2004
Wall Street Journal
By Jim Carlton
Cottonwood Falls, Kansas – When an energy company approached Jane Koger about putting some wind turbines on her ranch, she was elated. The fourth-generation Kansan was familiar with wind energy: Some years before, she had erected an 84-foot high windmill on her property near here to provide all of her electricity needs.
But when she later discovered the company planned to build dozens of turbines more than 300 feet high for miles around, she was appalled – so much so, she says, that she returned her $500 retainer check. She stood to make about $2,000 annually from the company, FPL Energy, for each turbine placed on her property. “It wouldn’t matter if the turbines made me a million dollars, if the thing I loved was destroyed in the process,” Ms. Koger says.
Across the Kansas Flint Hills, farmers and ranchers are up in arms over plans by wind developers to erect hundreds of spinning turbines astride hills and ridges that encompass the largest expanse of tallgrass prairie left in North America. Situated between Kansas City and Wichita, the Flint Hills are a weekend sanctuary for many city folks, an oasis of untilled land in the Midwestern Wheat Belt.
But that proximity to populated areas and the fact the Flint Hills is an extraordinarily gusty place have made the region a target for wind-energy developers. Over the past three years, developers have floated about two dozen windfarm projects, each potentially containing as many as 100 wind turbines.
The issue has split the environmental movement: Local chapters of the Audubon Society and Nature Conservancy say the turbines would befoul the landscape and harm wildlife, while Kansas Sierra Club leaders argue that exploiting wind power here will help reduce America’s reliance on fossil fuels. “The view that there should be none is elitist,” says Charles Benjamin, a lobbyist for the Sierra Club in Kansas. Counters Ron Klataske, executive director of the Audubon of Kansas: “It’s sad that the Sierra Club would mislead their membership that this is green energy, when it causes destruction.”
Wind farms have drawn similar controversy around the world. But this battle stands out because it is taking place in a state generally not thought of for its scenery, and one where many residents are staunch supporters of President Bush and his policies of coming up with more energy sources.
Proponents of wind energy extol its cleanliness. One large turbine can produce a megawatt or more of electricity, enough to power 300 to 400 homes, with almost no pollution, industry executives say. And in Flint Hills, an area about 200 miles long and 40 miles wide, developers say their wind farms would occupy only tiny parts of the rolling prairie, not dominate the landscape as many critics suggest. “We’re not talking thousands of wind turbines, or even a thousand,” says Bob Bergstrom, executive director of wind development of FPL Energy, a subsidiary of FPL Group Inc., Juno Beach, Fla.
The developers began flocking to Kansas four years ago, after research was shown at a Kansas State University conference that the Sunflower State ranked near the top of the country for wind-energy potential. FPL rushed to far-western Kansas to put up the state’s first large-scale wind farm. Dwarfed by the expanse of the Great Plains, the wind turbines drew little controversy; in fact, many residents clamored for more. According to Tom Sloan, a Kansas state representative who advocates wind energy, almost half the state’s 105 counties lost population during the 1990s amid shaky farming economies, and so could benefit from the new revenue. In addition to paying landowners for using their property, the developers typically also give money to local government and schools.
But seeing that western Kansas was located far from major population centers and lacked adequate electricity-transmission capacity to support many more wind farms, FPL and other developers looked to another windy area – the Flint Hills in eastern Kansas – for more expansion.
That the public reception in the east wasn’t as warm was in large part because many of the turbines would be visible for miles around atop the hills. The hills have remained mostly untilled because the soil lies over rough limestone and flint. When Houston-based Zilkha Renewable Energy in 2001 proposed putting up a wind farm within view of their ranch, for instance, Jacque and Steve Sundgren organized two dozen neighbors to file petitions with local Butler County officials to block the project. The Sundgrens say they also were concerned that the surrounding prairie would be carved up by roads and transmission lines and that habitat would be reduced for the native prairie chickens their family has hunted for the past half century.
“I agree this is a prime choice for a wind farm,” says the 51 year-old Mrs. Sundgren. “But they can build them someplace else.”
Zilkha withdrew its proposal after the county delayed its review of the project in the face of the protest. In neighboring Chase County, Ms. Koger says she was among eight other landowners rejecting FPL’s proposal to put up a wind farm on their properties.
Further north, in Wabaunsee County, another group of about nine landowners turned down a proposal for a wind farm by JW Prairie Windpower, a subsidiary of Juwi, and international renewable-energy company in Germany. As many as 100 local residents crammed into monthly meetings of the Wabaunsee County planning commission for 18 months to protest wind-farm plans there, prompting the county to institute a local ban on giant wind turbines this past summer.
JW Prairie officials say they were surprised at the opposition, having secured commitments for wind-turbine easements from some two dozen landowners in the county. They also say the part of the Flint Hills they selected had been plowed over in the past and so wasn’t as important as more pristine areas. “In picking our site, we tried to pick the least controversial,” says Jennifer States, managing director of JW Prairie, Lawrence, Kan.
After the Wabaunsee ban, Ms. States says JW has shifted its focus to neighboring Morris County, while FPL has secured commitments from other landowners in Chase County.
The wind-turbine controversy has turned neighbor against neighbor. Some landowners who have agreed to wind deals say their property rights are being trampled by their neighbors and that the threat of the turbines is grossly exaggerated. “I see the beauty of technology meeting the beauty o nature,” says 53-year-old Rick Griffen, a local rancher and real-estate agent who committed to letting FPL put turbines on his ranch.
Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebellus, a Democrat, last December asked the wind developers to use “restraint” as she assembled a task force to assess the situation. That put a halt to most projects. The task force has recommended keeping all large wind turbines out of the Flint Hills, while allowing them in areas not considered sensitive, says Lee Allison, chairman of the governor’s energy council. The governor is expected to make a decision on which option to push by the end of the year.
Wind developers, meanwhile, have been given fresh impetus to act. Congress last month authorized renewal of a production tax credit that the industry relies on to make wind farms economical. With President Bush’s signature last week, the companies are preparing to start building as many wind farms as they can before the credit expires again at the end of next year. For FPL, that has meant abandoning the Flint Hills, at least temporarily, to pursue less controversial locales. |
