Wind project argument does not hold water
Editor, The Recorder,
The Highland County Board of Supervisors May 19 public hearing on a conditional use permit request from Highland New Wind Development, LLC was described as record-setting in its length, the number in attendance and the number of speakers. Additionally, I believe it could also have been described as a very monumental outpouring of personal emotions, as the majority of the speakers poured their hearts and souls out to the supervisors, who will vote on the application on July 14.
Ms. Lisa Hawkins, the attorney who presented on behalf of the applicant, stated that the county ordinance requires that the supervisors address three concerns in analyzing any conditional use permit application. As the number two item, she stated The current and future need for the proposed use in Highland County and the area. This gets to the economic development benefit, as well as the countys stated goals that I reviewed, including those related to economic development, tourism and preservation of local resources, and promotion of clean industries. Completing her presentation, she then turned the applicants presentation over to Mr. John Flora whose presentation was an attempt to mitigate, in the minds of the supervisors and the hearing attendees, many of the documented negative consequences that have been caused by such industrial developments and which are now surfacing and being disclosed from numerous sources around the world. Subsequent speakers throughout the remainder of the evening addressed many of those issues and a full transcript of all of the speakers comments was published in The Recorder June 3 issue.
During his presentation Mr. Flora stated, Now for the big ticket item as we have discussed before, is tax revenue that this project provides. Once built, although we dont have an exact and final number, it appears the annual revenue to the county will be $175,000 to $250,000 a year, $35-$50 million over the 20-year life expectancy of the wind farm. And in the wind farm business, once you cross the 15-year threshold, you do everything you can to keep those things going because your debt is behind you. Thats just a 20-year figure – $35 to $50 million. Thats a lot of money for a struggling county. First, as pointed out in the article covering the hearing by The Recorder, 20 years times $175,000 to $250,000 per year equals $3,500,000 to $5,000,000 rather than $35 to $50 million. That was a monumental math error, but approximately 500 attendees of that meeting went home with that grossly misstated economic benefit of this project to Highland County in their minds.
In addition, Mr. Flora correctly pointed out that current Commonwealth of Virginia property tax computations produce a declining revenue stream for the county and that he had proposed legislation to establish a 20-year tax with some type of cost of living adjustment, but had not succeeded. This raises a significant question. What is the revenue stream for the county if the current method is not changed or even worse changed to a method comparable to that legislated in West Virginia that is extremely beneficial to the project operator paying the tax, certainly not the county. Using a straight-line depreciation of the fair market value of the wind turbines on which the $175,000 to $250,000 annual benefit to the county was calculated, the payments over the proposed projects 20-year life and discounted to the future present value produces a projected $1,262,295 to $1,803,279 or an average of $63,115 to $90,164 per year. Using the West Virginia method to calculate the same payments produces $102,464 to $146,377 or an average of $5,123 to $7,319 per year. Are either of the revenue streams really beneficial to Highland County, considering the risks of the adverse consequences that could or would result from approval of the variance request and allowance of this industrial development into the county?
The following very concerning article by Virgil Cochran, appeared in the Lamar Daily News
The Prowers County Commissioners will have about $94,000 less to work with this year than expected, thanks to a change in the assessed valuation of the Colorado Green Wind Farm.
The total hit to tax revenues in Prowers County will be about $213,000 because other taxing entities like the Re-2 School District and the Prowers-Baca Hospital District will also be affected.
Prowers County Assessor Andy Wyatt explained that a ruling by the state Board of Assessment Appeals had reduced the actual valuation of the project from $111,132,000 to $99,225,000 and the correlating assessed valuation, for tax purposes, from about $32.2 million to about $28.8 million. That means the assessed valuation of the entire county fell by a like amount, and so did total property tax revenues.
The county, during its budgeting process and during official certification of mill levies, was apparently never informed that Colorado Green had appealed its assessed valuation, so the county and other local taxing entities moved forward with the budgeting process unaware that the value could be changed and revenues could take a hit.
I am constantly amazed at the states inability to communicate among themselves and with the counties, said County Administrator and Budget Director Linda Fairbairn. She said the county would likely revise its 2005 budget to reflect the changes. The budget will most likely be revised to reflect lower fund balances, but Fairbairn said the county would keep a close eye on sales tax revenues and spending, and could hopefully absorb much of the shortfall.
The biggest hit will be to the county general fund, which will be reduced by $69,000. Road and Bridge Fund revenues will drop nearly $14,000 and the Social Services fund will experience an $8,600 drop. Lamar Re-2 will have a $96,000 revenue decrease, $71,000 in the general fund and $25,000 in a bond redemption fund, while the Prowers Hospital District will see revenues fall by $23,000.
Could this happen in Highland County as Virginia begins the wind turbine siting process?
Mr. Flora stated in his presentation that You will hear that they are noisy. They are not. The turbines are as loud as a refrigerator when you are standing 1,000 feet away, and there are no houses within 1,000 feet of this project. The Public Service Commission of West Virginia has approved rules applicable to Siting Certificate applications, which includes required studies and reports concerning projected noise levels before the proposed project is started, during the construction phase of the proposed project and during the operational phase of the proposed project. Since those rules were approved on May 25, three separate developers have filed petitions arguing that the noise provisions of the rules are flawed or unworkable and requesting additional hearings concerning the noise provisions. Some of the letters state that They will severely limit or even prevent the development of wind projects in West Virginia. If the statement concerning noise is correct, why are the developers in West Virginia concerned with the West Virginia Public Service Commission rules relating to noise?
In another presentation comment, Mr. Flora stated that, You will hear that turbines are harmful to birds, bats and endangered species. They are not. Birds do fly into things, but turbines are no more attractive to birds as a cell tower, your car, a five-story building or a cat. We do not believe there are any endangered species on Red Oak Knob or Tamarack. During the State Corporation Commissions permitting process later this summer we will be required to conduct an environmental study under the auspices of U. S. Fish and Wildlife. The results of the Bats and Wind Energy Cooperatives 2004 Field Season for the Mountaineer and Meyersdale Wind Energy Centers located along the Appalachian plateau in West Virginia and Pennsylvania respectively have been recently released. The Mountaineer site has 44 and the Meyersdale site 20 of the NEG Micron 1.5 MW turbines. The total numbers of bats estimated to have been killed during the six-week period of the study were 1,364 1,980 at the Mountaineer site and 400 920 at the Meyersdale site. Merlin Tuttle, director of Bat Conservation International in Austin, Texas was quoted in The Charleston Gazette as saying If the 900 or so turbines proposed are built in a 70-mile radius (of Mountaineer) prior to finding solutions, its very easy to extrapolate from this data to close to 60,000 bats killed a year. Thats very likely not an ecologically sustainable kill rate. Its urgent to find a solution.
Further, in my discussions with the assistant director of the State Corporation Commission, I have learned that the commission does not currently have any requirements for applications for siting wind turbines in Virginia. The U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service does have Interim Guidelines to Avoid and Minimize Wildlife Impacts from Wind Turbines, which is a 55-page comprehensive document. Some of the studies require three years for completion and reporting the conclusions based on the study findings. Will Virginia follow the interim guidelines? I have written a letter to the State Corporation Commission suggesting that they would be well served in the performance of its duties if the commission were to develop and adopt a comparable set of requirements for applicants wanting to site wind turbines in Virginia as those adopted by the Public Service Commission in West Virginia.
During the applicants presentation it was stated that this project application could be approved and future project applications rejected. Future projects and their applications are already on the drawing board. The siting application filed for the proposed project on Jack Mountain in West Virginia as well as the agreement with the Pendleton County Commission included a transmission line to transmit the electricity from 112 wind turbines on Jack Mountain, 50 in Pendleton County, W.Va. and 62 in Highland County.
I wrote this letter because I believe that the future economic benefits to Highland County and other matters (some of which I have not included in this letter) were inadequately (inappropriately) portrayed to the supervisors and the approximately 500 attendees of that meeting. Copies of all documents from which I have quoted or used information have been given to the board of supervisors and to The Recorder for their review and confirmation.
Larry Thomas Circleville, W.Va.
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