Wind Lease Agreements
The original C-Bed requirements for 51% ownership in the local jurisdiction should be reinstated. What is currently happening in Goodhue County is the bundling of the county’s wind rights by wind developers for sale to large utilities, out of state investors and foreign investors. The true value of windrights is yet to be determined. Goodhue County covered in wind turbines with the majority of the benefits going out of state or over seas could place us in the position the indians found themselves in after trading Manhattan Island for a handful of beads.
I beleive in alternative clean energy, solar power, wind power and biofuels. All offer opportunities for farmers and land owners. But leasing wind rights for longer than the service life of the equipment installed does not make any sense at all. I am told that wind developers got an exemption from a Minnesota constitutional protection of farmland to do just that. I was offered a chance to lease my wind rights to Goodhue Wind but did not do so because of the length of the contract and all the property rights I would be giving up, and most importantly they were not offering even half of what I think they should be paying. I am waiting for a better offer from a project that will follow Goodhue County’s setbacks and will not require that I sign over more than just my wind rights.
I beleive that the current project and the current state permitting process does nothing to protect our local resources. There needs to be requirements that wind development contracts do not include clauses that give wind developers control of everything above on or below the ground. Such terms could someday be construed to include ground water, sunshine(solar power) and even farming operations. All these extras that the developers claim are only in the contracts to protect their investors make me suspicious. What if the developers are really trying to take possession of our ground water for future sale? Clean water is rapidly becoming precious we might someday be paying a large corporation just to pump our water out of the ground.
Everything contains it’s exact opposite. Without proper planning and a better understanding of what is truely at stake, instead of benefiting from wind development all area residents and especially those that enter into bad wind leases could lose.
Rick Conrad
