MARSHALL — Bradley Ragland and Charles Baker agree that the proposed installation of more than 100 wind turbines on Star Mountain and South Mountain would change Searcy County.
However, Ragland and Baker have widely divergent opinions on what that change would be.
Ragland sees new jobs and landowners’ profits igniting the stagnant economy of Searcy County, with per capita income of $20,488, the lowest in Arkansas, according to the most recent data available from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
TradeWind Energy of Lenexa, Kan., which has measured wind speed on the mountains for five years, has signed up more than 100 landowners for potentially thousands of dollars in royalties if turbines begin producing electricity. The project will begin construction if TradeWind gets a contract to sell the power to an electricity provider, a company spokesman said.
“We need something in this county,” Ragland said as he sat in Kelley’s Country Kitchen in Marshall with more than a dozen supporters of the project. “We’ve got to make a living here. People in this county are ... in a cage.”
A Pentecostal pastor, Ragland drives more than four hours a day to and from Russellville to hang drywall for a construction firm. Others in the county make hours-long round trips to work in Cabot, Jacksonville and Little Rock, Ragland said. An infusion of money from TradeWind would help people like them because they may be able tofind work in Searcy County, Ragland said.
But Baker believes the wind turbines would create constantly irritating noise, harm to birds and wildlife and, most critical to him, possibly damage five springs on his 55-acre property on 1,980-foot Star Mountain, which is about 10 miles southwest of Marshall.
Hammering or blasting into Star Mountain’s rocky subsurface to erect 400-foot tall wind turbines near his property would likely set up vibrations that would destroy the springs and wells on landowners’ properties, Baker said. Poison Ivy Soap Co., which he owns, makes and sells a soap antidote for poison ivy, poison oak and poison sumac, that is made from jewelweed, which flourishes on his spring-fed property.
Years ago, when an electric company went to his property to put up a pole near his home, it used a quarter of a stick of dynamite to blast a hole, Baker said. That destroyed his well and cut the flow of one of the underground springs by 90 percent, Baker said.
Losing the springs “would put me out of business,” Baker said.
And 400-foot wind turbines, roughly the height of a 40-story building, would obstruct views of the mountains and valleys, he said.
The project in Searcy County is one of several proposed wind farms in Arkansas, which has relatively light winds. Wind speeds in Searcy County are about 12 to 14 miles per hour at 165 feet above the ground, the second-lowest of seven categories rated by the U.S. Department of Energy.In west Texas, wind speeds are commonly more than 25 miles an hour.
“We’ve got some pretty strong scientific evidence to back up the fact that it is windy there,” counters Aaron Weigel, TradeWind’s director of project development.
Company data gathered over five years show that wind speeds are higher than the Department of Energy estimates, Weigel said. And the wind farm would be close to transmission lines, he added.
TradeWind also is planning a wind farm in northwest Benton County. That project is about a year ahead of the one in Searcy County, Weigel said.
In addition, Trem-Wel Energy LLC of Van Buren; Chicago-based Invenergy; Clipper Windpower of Carpinteria, Calif.; Hudson Energy of New York; and E.ON Power and Gas of Dusseldorf, Germany, have researched wind projects in Arkansas within the past year.
LURE OF PAYMENTS
TradeWind sells electricity wholesale to energy companies. It is in various stages of developing about 8,000 megawatts of electricity in projects from Michigan to Texas, enough to power 1.7 million homes, Weigel said.
About a year ago, TradeWind began paying Arkansas landowners to secure rights to develop a wind farm.
Landowners, some of whom have 800 acres or more, are being paid $3 an acre per year to contract with TradeWind, Weigel said. If TradeWind begins work on the project, that payment rises to $20 an acre, he said. After 10 years of operation the payment would rise to $30an acre.
And when the wind turbines begin producing electricity, landowners will be paid various percentages for the electricity produced per turbine, which could amount to as much as $10,000 a year, Weigel said.
A property owner with 10 wind turbines could draw $100,000 a year, or $2 million to $3 million over the 20- to 30-year life of the project, Weigel said. One turbine can produce 1.5 megawatts of electricity.
If it decides the development is worthwhile, TradeWind would invest $200 million to $400 million on the project, Weigel said. It would be a few more years before TradeWind begins putting up turbines in Searcy County, Weigel said.
JOBS AND TAXES
The economic impact to the county would be significant, said James Hubbard, who owns Marshall Milling True Value Farm and Home Supply, and 800 acres on Star Mountain.
TradeWind has said it would employ 150 to 250 people for about a year to putup the wind turbines, with as many as possible being local workers, Weigel said. After that, eight to 17 people would work full time maintaining the turbines, with about half of the workers from the area, Weigel said. The permanent employees would make $40,000 to $50,000 and up, Weigel said.
TradeWind would pay a property tax and an energy tax to the county when the turbines are built, Hubbard said. All of that would benefit people in Searcy County, he said.
TradeWind would pursue incentives from state or local agencies, Weigel said. The company does face state and federal regulations, such as environmental restrictions, but it doesn’t expect problems meeting those, Weigel said.
Many people have left the county because they can’t find work, Ragland said.
“There are only three graduates from my [Marshall] graduating class in ’93 who still live here,” said Ragland, who raises cattle on about 360 acres in the county. “They have to leave to find work.”
Any income that comes into this county “will be a blessing,” Ragland said.
“I’ve got a friend who has a food pantry [for the poor] here and he can’t keep enough food in it because people are suffering that much,” Ragland said.
The population in Searcy County has dropped 4 percent from 8,261 in 2000 to 7,944 this year. Only three counties in the state have fewer residents.
Searcy County’s unemployment rate was 7.2 percent in June, the latest data available, but it was 10.7 percent in February.
Joe Jones, who owns land on Star Mountain, said opponents don’t have good reasons to oppose the project.
“It’s not like the Park Service came in here and took everybody’s land,” Jones said. “They have a choice. You can be either in it or you can refrain from leasing your land. So it’s just a choice that we made, those who leased their land. And if they want to be out of it, so be it. We have no concern with them.”
The debate over the proposal has been addressed in several meetings of the Searcy County Quorum Court, all of which have been relatively cordial, said Bob Friedl, an opponent of the project.
County Judge Johnny Hinchey said the Quorum Court will not rule in favor or against the wind turbines.
“We have no jurisdiction,” Hinchey said.
John Henley, the mayor of St. Joe, is not against a wind farm, but said the company “ought to carry” its weight. “We need the industry,” Henley said.
TradeWind should be required to pay for the upkeep on any roads it builds to install the wind turbines, said Henley, who was born and reared in St. Joe.
Any home within 500 feet of an unpaved roadway used by TradeWind should have a stretch of the road paved near the home so the homeowner “does not have to eat dust year-round,” Henley said.
OPPOSITION GROUP
Friedl started a group that is fighting the project.
The conflict is dividing his family, said Friedl, who owns 460 acres on Star Mountain, and vows he will never allow a wind turbine on his property.
His three sons and two daughters now live hundreds of miles away, along with his 32 grandchildren.
“They want me to put these things up, get the money and move to Kansas City,” said Friedl, retired and a former owner of an insurance agency.
But Friedl, 75, likes the peacefulness of the mountain, the beauty of which he gets an eagle’s eye view by flying his single-engine plane.
No official survey has been taken, but opponents claim there are about 25 people outspoken in their opposition. Others are against it but are hesitant to speak out, said Joseph Kelly, who owns more than 90 acres on Star Mountain.
“I’ve encountered people [opposed to the project] who just don’t want to get involved, period,” Kelly said.
Weigel and a wind-energy expert argue that some property owners’ fears about wind turbines are unfounded.
Weigel acknowledged that the slowly turning blades directly beneath a wind turbine produce about 55 decibels of noise. That is the equivalent of moderate rainfall, according to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
“But [the noise] degrades to the level of background noise at about 1,000 feet, and is not noticeable to most people,” Weigel said.
However, one wind-energy company, Caithness Energy of New York, is so concerned about complaints that it is paying property owners in northern Oregon $5,000 each not to complain about noise from a wind farm with 48 turbines, The New York Times reported this month.
Opponents of the Oregon wind farm said the constant whooshing from the turbines makes them anxious and keeps them awake at night, the Times reported.
In its lease contracts, TradeWind says it will not place wind turbines within 1,000 feet of residences. Opponents argue that is still too close and should be one mile or more.
Richard Walker, a research associate at Texas Tech University’s Wind Science and Engineering Research Center, said the closest a wind turbine should be to a home is a quarter-mile, or 1,320 feet, and certainly no closer to a landowner who is not getting royalties.
“I’d say don’t push the issue,” Walker said.
Walker said newer technologies have considerably reduced noise from wind turbines.
“From a quarter-mile away, it sounds like a quiet bedroom or a refrigerator humming,” Walker said. “That really is not a substantial issue now.”
WAITING FOR MARKET
Jerry Kirk, who moved to Searcy County 13 years ago from Florida, lives on Star Mountain and is concerned that landowners in the area will suffer health problems because of noise or that property values will drop because of the wind farms.
Kirk said he has done personal research on the international wind industry, particularly in Canada and Europe.
“There are maybe two or three days a month up here with enough wind to turn one of those blades,” Kirk said. “I’m afraid these people are getting ready to get roasted up here. I don’t want to see them get hurt, but I think that’s what’s going to happen.”
There is a possibility the project never will be built, Weigel said.
“The key to any wind farm is to sell power,” Weigel said. “We’re waiting for the appropriate market and an agreement to sell the electricity.You don’t build a wind farm based on speculation.”
The U.S. wind industry set a record last year by installing almost 10,000 megawatts of new generating capacity, enough to serve more than 2.4 million homes, the American Wind Energy Association says. But a lack of a long-term market has considerably slowed the promise of advanced projects, the association said.
Internationally, a record of 38 gigawatts of wind power was added last year, led by China, which added 13.8 gigawatts of wind power, according to the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century.
Both Entergy Arkansas and Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corp., which are electricity providers in the area, said this month that they are open to buying power from a Searcy County wind farm.
Information for this article was contributed by Paul P. Quinn of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 08/22/2010