A WIND ON THE LAND

A great little (true) story: A representative of wind developer enXco was negotiating with Wyoming rancher Bob Grant and his sons for land rights to install a wind project in 2007. enXco was offering $2.50/acre. Discussions broke off. The enXco rep came back a year later offering nearly $5.00/acre.

The enXco guy said the price jump reflected a new wind market.

Greg Probst, representative, enXco: “There’s a better chance that there’s a market for the power, and a way to get the power to market, than there was 18 months or two years ago…So we’re definitely willing to pay more at this point.”

The Grants decided a price change like that could only mean 1 thing: They needed somebody who knew the truth about the wind market. They joined the Bordeaux Wind Energy Association, a local landowners cooperative incorporated to bargain with the wind developers.

Such coops are developing all over the west as wind developers descend on landowners for development rights.

A mythology grew up around the practices of the oil industry’s “land men” as that resource burgeoned in the 2nd half of the 19th and 1st half of the 20th centuries. The aggression of the oil industry predators, as portrayed in the 2007 film There Will Be Blood, seems to be echoed in the negotiating tactics of some of the people looking for land on which to erect wind turbines but the coops are preventing them from doing the same kind of harm.

Example: 70-something widow Elsie Bacon was offered 25% of what was paid by a local utility for a transmission right-of-way. Bacon also joined the Bordeaux Wind Energy Association.

Both the Grants and Bacon expect to get a fair share of the wind-generated profits of turbines placed on their land when credit loosens, markets return and energy prices again start soaring.

Conclusion: There will NOT be blood. There will, instead, be lots of clean New Energy, profitting everybody concerned.

The cooperative associations are forcing wind developers to deal with them instead of isolated, uninformed landowners. They are not only effectively driving bargains with the developers to get the landowners fair shares, they are also getting an appropriate piece of the action for local communities that participate in the associations.

In this time of high costs and slow markets, a fair return from wind developers could be the difference between success and failure for western ranchers.

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A Land Rush in Wyoming Spurred by Wind Power
Felicity Barringer, November 27, 2008 (NY Times)

WHO
Grant Stumbough, official, the Resource Conservation and Development office of the Agriculture Department and godfather of local wind associations; the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) (Ronald Lehr, representative); The Bordeaux Wind Energy Association (Elsie Bacon and Bob Grant, members); the Slater Wind Energy Association (Gregor Goertz head); the Glendo Wind Energy Association (Larry Cundall, head); the Little Rose Wind Farm (Ed Ahlstrand Jr., representative); Jim Anderson, state senator, Wyoming districts being developed by the wind industry

WHAT
A land rush is under way in southeastern Wyoming and throughout the west for leases on ranchland and farmland where wind power can be developed. Landowners are forming cooperative associations to give themselves bargaining leverage.

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WHEN
- The wind has been cursed in the west since the days of the 1st pioneers.
- Now the people on the land may reap rewards from the wind.
- New cooperative associations continue to form.

WHERE
- The article focuses on coop activity in Albany, Converse and Platte Counties of southeastern Wyoming.
- New transmission now being developed is aimed at allowing Wyoming’s bounteous wind resources to supply huge markets in the Southwest like California, which has a Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) requiring it to obtain 1/3 of its power from New Energy sources by 2020.
- Similar landowner cooperative and protective groups have formed and are forming in Colorado, Montana and New Mexico.

WHY
- 8 Wyoming cooperative associations have formed and 3 more are forming, in a shift from the local “Marlboro Man” culture of self-reliance.
- The coops allow landowners to bargain collectively for better lease prices and protects them from the high-pressure, low offer tactics of developers.
- In the coops, the ranchers share information about land values and wind potentials.
The ranchers traditionally have been ready to help their neighbors but not to discuss financial matters.
- Current market factors like falling oil prices and tight credit will most likely slow wind energy development. But the wind will not stop blowing and the markets will come back.

TransWest will deliver Wyoming wind-generated electricity to population centers in the Southwest. (click to enlarge)

QUOTES
- Gregor Goertz, head, Slater Wind Energy Association: “Maybe they wouldn’t talk to each other often about other issues…but here they could see a common goal…everybody in the community is going to be affected…[Associations] assure that everybody will have some income whether they have a turbine placed on their property or not.”
Ronald Lehr, representative, AWEA: “This is the best wind in North America, we think,”
- Jim Anderson, state senator, southeastern Wyoming: “I think the word is kind of out…that Wyoming is probably ahead of the curve in regard to those people who might be opportunist and want to come in and take advantage…I think that we’ve positioned ourselves well to be prudent and intelligent negotiators.”