Wise WordsWind . . . Farming?
Consider THIS:
At 3% inflation per year, your royalty lease payments will be worth HALF of what they are today as the turbines become aged, unless you tie them an inflation adjustment measure such as GNP inflator or retail electric rates per kWH.
As FUEL COSTS rise, the extra cost of tilling, fertilizing and harvesting around service roads will eat into your royalties more and more as inflation buys you less and less with the same payment amount. Don't get squeezed by the developer!
As ELECTRIC RATES rise, your wind resource becomes more and more valuable, but subsidies help keep wind power prices lower. Don't sell yourself short - make YOUR lease royalty based on ALL EQUIVALENT REVENUE SOURCES INCLUDING TAX BREAKS, DEPRECIATION AND INTEREST RATE VALUE.
Could your upwind neighbor be robbing your royalties? Unless their turbines are sited FIVE ROTOR DIAMETERS from your property line, the answer is YES, according to industry standards. Here are two articles that explain:
The communities here are ALREADY highly residential, making farmland preservation strategies moot. The time to build industrial scare crows to keep your neighbor farmers from selling land for homesteads based on peace and quiet and natural surroundings is gone. The "problematic" EX-URBAN population who bought those small parcels consists of real people with real lives and real rights. They cannot be bullied, and they should have a right to referrendum regardless of Ohio Supreme Court case 2008-0059.
IN THE NEWS:
Multi-State anti-trust complaint alleges market allocation, or divvying up of regions in advance to avoid competition, costing farmers potentially 90% of their lease revenue under a fair and competitive scenario.
Read addendum to complaint here.
Fifty parcel divisions have matured into family homes within
1/3 mile of the proposed Babcock Brown wind farm project.
Why? Because years ago farmers sliced into their land - not with discs
but instead with transom and survey spike. Splitting deed and
planting family opportunities anew.
They harvested healthy green American dollars from this then-unique
brand of "parcel farming," and so the new neighbors took root.
They grew and worked. They paid their taxes and spent their pay checks
close by, feeding the local merchant and banker alike.
A bumper crop it was, and so gradually, season after season, a community developed.
Bonds formed. Trust grew. Farmers farmed their remaining piece to
prosper. New homes were built on the frontage, then embellished through
proud care and practice, becoming a kind of living, growing asset of their own
for their owners to harvest in later years.
But now the crop dujour, wind farming it’s called, challenges the very
values of the rural homestead foundation. It promises a fresh crop of dollars
to the farmer but threatens the home grown prosperity of the rural
resident. Moreover it breaks the treasured trust of friends forever, and sends
a chill through each village square.
Inconvenient weeds the rural homeowners have become, fighting only for the values that rooted them, and to choke out the new Ohio crop of thin air...
- Tom Stacy, June, 2007
A very sad look back from a Wisconsin Farmer
The following ad was written by a resident of Chilton, Wisconsin after he interviewed a landowner in Northeast Fond du Lac County for two hours. He wrote this story and then showed it to the landowner - who wishes to remain anonymous. The landowner approved this ad for publication. We understand that the landowner is under a gag order in his lease with the wind developer. If he discusses the project he may risk losing his lease payments.
Click to see the full color version ad from the Chilton Times-Journal
