Proposed wind farm ‘draws concerns’ from ND residents
The Grand Forks Herald reported last week about the concerns from residents about the newly-proposed Flickertail Wind Project:
The nuisance of their presence, their impact on animals and the drain on property value are among their worries.
Residents critical of the Flickertail Wind Farm project have said that not everyone in the project boundary is on board with it, and those who haven’t signed up don’t have a lot of information, prompting uncertainty. Their concerns include noise, vibrations and shadow flicker, the possible harm to wildlife and livestock, how property near but not part of the project might be devalued and how zoning for the wind turbines has been handled.
David Fite, one of the voices in opposition to the project, said he wants to have public meetings so everyone can gather and have discussions.
“They just need to have public meetings where we can sit down there and discuss this issue,” he said. “Maybe they have solutions, maybe they don’t…”
Levi Rue has concerns about how the project could devalue some property. While having turbines on their land would be financially beneficial to project participants, he believes those nearby could see their property devalued.
“This is the middle of North Dakota. It’s agriculture,” he said. “(People) knew what they were getting into when they lived there. They bought their property, they knew that there were going to be combines going and cows bellering and stuff like that. They didn’t bank on possibly their largest asset that they have, their home, being in the middle of a wind energy conversion facility.”
Fite doesn’t think the money projected to go into the area will be spent there, as some landowners don’t live in the project area.
“Go to any of these meetings — the first thing they’ll do is they bring up the money to the community,” he said. “I don’t think a lot of that is going to be spent here in Eddy County. … It’s not as wonderful as they say.”
The project would have up to 112 wind turbines across almost 43,000 acres in Eddy and Wells Counties, North Dakota. The project would have an approximately 370 megawatt nameplate capacity. The project would be owned and operated by PRC Wind, with the Minnkota Power Cooperative entering into a long-term power agreement to purchase its electricity. The project would be scheduled to start construction by 2027.
Alex Ingulsrud, senior project developer at PRC Wind, told the Grand Forks Herald that “They’re pretty typical types of concerns.” Mr. Ingulsrud told the Herald that noise and vibrations won’t be a nuisance because North Dakota has strict regulations for how loud the project design and sound modeling can be. That may be so, but as Robert Bryce described in a 2021 report for American Experiment, the impacts of low-frequency noise from turbines can have real health effects on nearby residents.
Mr. Ingulsrud also told the Herald that “he hasn’t seen a uniform peer-reviewed study demonstrating decreased property value for land near wind farms.” However, several studies are documented in American Experiment’s 2021 report that find associations between wind turbine proximity and declines in property values. A 2014 London School of Economics study found that houses located within 1.2 miles of large wind projects saw their values reduced by about 11 percent. A 2016 study found that “the asking price for properties whose view was strongly affected by the construction of wind turbines decreased by about 9 to 14 percent.”
These concerns and others mentioned in the article are worth serious consideration by project developers, and local residents deserve the chance to make their voices heard.