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September 2, 2008

Wind turbine project still up in the air

Local Lafayette Township landowners are fighting against putting the turbines on their land

By Brian Ojanpa

MANKATO — A group of rural Nicollet County landowners is opposing a plan to establish a wind farm project in their area.

The plan by New Ulm’s Public Utilities Commission calls for five wind turbine sites on 237 acres of Lafayette Township.

“We’re not opposed to wind energy; we’re opposed to where they’re putting it,” said Pete Altmann, one of more than 70 signers of a petition opposing the plan.

The landowners group will voice its concerns Monday at a Nicollet County Planning and Zoning Commission meeting.

In a letter sent to area media, the group said surrounding landowners, including those who have signed land-use leases with the New Ulm Utilities Commission, have opposed the project from the start.

The letter stated the landowners entered into the leases only for fear of losing large portions of their crop lands to eminent domain procedures.

“There are a lot of concerns and unanswered questions,” said landowners group member Jeff Franta, adding that the group will wait until the meeting to air specifics.

“It’s all going to come out in the wash,” he said.

The Monday meeting, however, won’t involve itself with the turbine project per se. Rather, planning and zoning members will be discussing the New Ulm commission’s application to install a tower to measure wind speed.

The 200-foot meteorological structure, called an anemometer, would record data to determine site viability for installation of turbines.

“This is only for discussion of the tower. It does not give permission to start building the wind turbines,” Nicollet County Environmental Services Director Mandy Landkamer said of the meeting’s purpose.

The tower would be erected near one of the proposed wind turbine sites on property owned by Sharon Hacker, who declined to comment.

The landowners group acknowledged that wind energy is a top choice for electrical power going green in the future.

“However,” the group said, “there are places much better suited than this area for wind turbines.”

New Ulm public utilities engineer Pat Wrase said landowners initially were favorable toward the plan, but for whatever reason have since become opposed.

Under the plan, owners of properties where turbines would be placed would receive annual payments of $6,500.

The project could bring five wind turbines into New Ulm’s power grid and would coincide with new state guidelines that will require 25 percent of the state’s electrical power to come from renewable resources by 2025.

Wrase said the turbines could be operational by late 2009 or early 2010 and would produce 5 to 7 megawatts of power.

New Ulm annually sells 205 million kilowatt hours of electricity to its customers. A 5-megawatt wind farm would produce 16 million kilowatt hours per year.

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