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Sunday, March 27, 2011

Environment - More on: "Wind turbines can bring financial windfall"

ILB entries from Aug. 9 and Nov. 2, 2010 told the story of hopes raised and dashed in Lake County where there was talk of an Australian wind farm developer promising "$11,000 per year per turbine" for rights to place turbines on farm land in the county.

Yesterday a new story in the Gary Post-Tribune by Diane Krieger Spivak, headed "New wind company looks at Lake County ." Some quotes:

Another international wind company is taking a look at south Lake County as a potentially viable location for a $5 billion 100-megawatt wind farm that could create up to 100 jobs.

London-based International Power plc’s North American operations wants to locate a 100-turbine wind farm in Eagle Creek Township, east of Lowell, the same area in multinational wind company Windlab had hoped to place a wind farm last year.

Windlab abandoned the project in October after determining that two factors — the Kankakee River drainage system and residential growth in the area — made it unfeasible.

Andy Paterson, president and CEO of Michigan Energy Generation, which has a development agreement with International Power, said Michigan Energy does not see the same problems with the site that Windlab did.

“To us that didn’t make sense,” Paterson said. Building in flood plains will add to the cost but won’t limit you from building.” In one of International Power’s windfarms is located on the shores of Lake St. Claire, in Canada. * * *

The company pays property owners based on the total revenue produced by the farm divided by the total number of turbines. That could be a collective $1 million a year. The project could also put another $200,000 and $400,000 a year in property taxes into the local economy, he said. * * *

Collection of wind data, which involves erecting a meteorological tower, is critical, and could take up to two years. Other studies include bird and bat migration. The entire process could take two to five years, Paterson said.

“Indiana’s got excellent wind resources,” Paterson said, thanks to the Great Lakes and predominant southwestern winds. * * *

Morocco lawyer Dan Blaney is again representing the property owners as he did with the Windlab’s project that would have placed up to 200 turbines on 23,000 acres at the eastern end of Lake County, stopping a mile north of the Kankakee River. Blaney said he sent copies of Benton and Newton counties’ wind ordinances this week to Lake County Council attorney Ray Szarmach. Szarmach said he planned to draw up a utility-scale wind ordinance for Lake County, as a separate ordinance from the small,home- and agriculture-based wind energy systems ordinance that went into effect last fall.

“We’re looking for encompassing more issues,” Szarmach said. “We’re try to expand on that. Szarmach said he hoped to have a rough draft next week, in time for Council members to study it before the Council’s April 12 meeting.

At the same time, the NWI Times has a story that makes no mention of wind turbines, headed "Surging land prices have local analysts, farmers worried bubble could burst." Bowdeya Tweh reports:
[A]fter taking a slight dip during the recession, agricultural land values are continuing to rise and have doubled their average from a decade ago. * * *

According to Brent Gloy, director of Purdue University's Commercial Agriculture Center, the value of average quality land in Indiana is approaching $4,500 an acre, up from less than $1,000 an acre in 1987. Growing world incomes, increased use of food crops for biofuels, low interest rates and a weaker U.S. dollar have helped push crop prices and land values higher, Gloy said in a Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. presentation earlier this month.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on March 27, 2011 04:56 PM
Posted to Environment