Jun 28, 2005 - 23:16:47 CDT
DICKEY COUNTY -- The wind blows steady on the ridgeline in Dickey County.It's constant, daily wind averaging around 22 mph, bending summer grass, swirling winter snow.
That old familiar wind is blowing up money in Dickey County. And it's blowing money's darker side. There is fear among neighbors that wind is being stolen from right above them.
At the center is a wind farm planned by Florida Power and Light. It's the same company that's planning a wind farm around Wilton and already has one north of Dickey County between the towns of Kulm and Edgeley.
FPL was recently awarded a power supply bid from Otter Tail Power Co. for a new 75-megawatt wind farm in Dickey County, south of an existing wind farm at Kulm.
A second wind developer, enXco Inc., a California-based company, also has wind leases with landowners in Dickey County. EnXco doesn't yet have a buyer for any wind energy it would produce in Dickey County. It has leases, but no project. Landowners say that FPL is siting turbines so close to them that the turbines will steal the wind off their property and make their leases with enXco worthless.
There is no agency, or regulatory body, federal, state, county or otherwise to sort out the problem.
A handful of landowners in Spring Valley Township in Dickey County are trying to fix that. They have created a comprehensive land use and zoning plan for the township that will be voted on at 9 a.m. Friday at the indoor arena at Greg Brokaw's farm.
There are 33 residents in the township. If the zoning passes, the tiny governmental entity will be the only one in North Dakota to regulate how this wind developer does business on the land.
One of the zoning requirements in the Spring Valley Township plan would force FPL to move much farther from the property line than it plans to.
Mark Flaten is the case in point. FPL has soil tested for four turbines less than 200 feet from his property line, property he has leased for wind rights to enXco.
The issue isn't the turbines. The issue is a phenomenon called "wind wake." Wind wake creates downwind turbulence. Turbines are spaced so turbulence from one doesn't reduce the energy production from the next.
The proposed zoning would force FPL to move five times the diameter of the rotator blades away from the property line, in this case 1,250 feet or nearly a quarter-mile. The zoning setback would apply to any wind developer and allows for variances if both landowners approve.
FPL director John DiDonato said his company generally spaces turbines three rotator diameters apart, or 750 feet, looking for high wind spots without worrying about property lines. DiDonato said no state where the company has wind farms has property line setbacks, only for "tower falls," to protect surrounding property.
He said the zoning could force his company to locate the proposed towers off Flaten's neighbor's land, causing that landowner to lose money and adding more cost to the project.
"It's likely that (Marcus Heim, Flaten's neighbor) would be treated unfairly," DiDonato said.
Flaten said the zoning issue has caused hard feelings between him and Heim, but he believes the wind he's leased out shouldn't be sucked up into another developer's turbine, any more than an oil developer could sink a well and suck up someone else's oil.
"I just assumed everybody played by the same rules. When one does and one doesn't, it really spoils the soup," Flaten said.
Heim said he doesn't want a fight with his neighbor, but he happens to have an ideal lay and height of land for turbine placement. A setback, like the one proposed, could move turbines off the ridge and down a slough, where they'd never be built.
The eight turbines planned for his land mean $1 million in income over the 20 years of the project.
"The fact is, I've got a company that's going forward and they got a company that's amassing land and no plans to go forward," Heim said.
Minnesota regulates turbine placement, requiring the same five times rotator diameter setback as proposed for Spring Valley Township.
Larry Hartman heads the Minnesota Environmental Quality Board, which regulates and permits wind farms, a function that will soon be taken over by the state's Department of Commerce. Hartman said wind development is fiercely competitive and Minnesota's decision to require permits for any wind project greater than five megawatts has turned out for the best.
Placing turbines too close can cause a 5 percent to 6 percent wind loss, he said.
"They're all trying to get a leg up on each other," Hartman said. "That's why you need setbacks, to prevent that from happening. The Dickey County situation would probably not happen in Minnesota."
Until this past legislative session, the Public Service Commission regulated wind farms greater than 50 megawatts. But a new law says the PSC has no regulatory oversight for any project less than 100 megawatts.
FPL's new wind farm in Dickey County, at 75 megawatts, will be the biggest in the state and still outside state oversight and only within the jurisdiction of the Spring Valley Township board, if the zoning passes.
That legislation was co-sponsored by Rep. Mike Brandenburg, R-Edgeley, the only state legislator to get a $1,000 political contribution from FPL.
It was passed over the lone objections of PSC Commissioner Susan Wefald. Wefald said she thinks the PSC should still be holding public hearings on wind energy projects on the scale of the one in Dickey County so issues could be aired and handled by a state agency. She said townships are close to the people and the project, but it's hard for people in them to learn all they need to know to make the necessary decisions.
There are several wind farms on the drawing boards, including a 150-megawatt project near Rugby where the PSC will have oversight.
DiDonato said the company needed to get the project on the fast track in order to get federal production tax credits, which could expire this year.
Brandenburg said he appreciated the 2004 campaign contribution, but it didn't affect how he represents his district, Spring Valley Township included. Brandenburg said FPL would have put the wind farm in South Dakota if the North Dakota Legislature hadn't changed the law to prevent a six-month to three-year permitting lag.
He said the real problem is that enXco has 10-year leases and people like Flaten can't get out of their lease when a live project gets going.
DiDonato said wind developers plant turbines on high spots in optimal wind zones -- and Dickey County has one of the best.
"It's who's been able to get the deal done first," DiDonato said. "They're attempting to establish ground rules after the fact."
New state law limits wind lease options to five years.
Brandenburg said the township zoning will send the wrong message, though he does think locating a turbine 200 feet from someone's property line is too close.
"That's not the way to do business," Brandenburg said.
He said he wanted to keep the $90 million project in North Dakota.
The existing 61-megawatt wind farm north of Dickey County in LaMoure County was a $65 million project and generates $300,000 in property tax. It also pays $3,500 in annual land lease income for each of 41 turbines, another $143,000 added to the local economy, Brandenburg said.
Flaten, along with Spring Valley township farmers and ranchers Greg Brokaw and Renee and Brad Crabtree, worked on the zoning. They tried to get the Dickey County Commission involved in zoning wind farms, but the commission deferred to the township's authority.
Dickey County Commissioner Joel Hamar said he thinks the Legislature passed the buck and now the township may have to carry the regulatory burden.
"This is an industry that's going to be around like oil and coal and maybe there should be regulations," Hamar said.
Brad Crabtree said wind farms should be unitized, like oilfields, to compensate any landowner inside the wind wake diameter.
Hamar said some people in Dickey County think Flaten, Brokaw and the Crabtrees are trying to stop wind development.
"They're not. They trying to protect themselves and they want this to protect everyone in North Dakota," Hamar said.
Hamar said he doesn't want the county to lose the project and that DiDonato assured him the company won't pull the plug if the township zoning is approved.
"I tried to tell him that these people have to be neighbors forever," Hamar said. "This issue has made my phone ring more than anything has."
DiDonato said the Dickey County project still needs to be approved by the Minnesota Public Utility Commission because it will serve Minnesota consumers, and it also will require that the federal energy production tax credit gets extended, as expected.
Flaten said no one involved in the zoning wants to stop wind development.
"We just want to have some say, so they can't come in and take what's yours without even telling you about it," he said.
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