Resource Library Category: Illinois (7 items)
Documents presented here are not the product of nor are they necessarily endorsed by National Wind Watch. This resource library is provided to assist anyone wishing to research the issue of industrial wind power and the impacts of its development. The information should be evaluated by each reader to come to their own conclusions about the many areas of debate.
Steel in Grand Ridge Wind Farm
Source: JandB Steel Erectors
Just over 3,750,000 lbs of rebar in 66 Wind Turbine foundations were installed. Each octagon shaped foundation included a bottom mat, top mat, and column pedestal. Location: Ransom, Illinois. Completed: March 2008
http://www.jbsteel.com/index.php/photos/album/32.html
Know the facts before you sign!
Source: Informed Farmers Coalition
The Informed Farmers Coalition is a group of Lee County and Bureau County landowners and citizens whose goal is to spread awareness of all facts concerning wind farm development in the area.
The Money Facts
Wind plants lower property values. “At present time, anecdotal data indicates that wind turbines have a depressing effect on nearby land values and are a drag on the ag real estate market. Most recent anecdotal data from Illinois indicates that assessed value on farmland is dropping approximately 22 – 30 percent on farmland that is near land where wind turbines have been placed.” —Source: Iowa State University Center for Agricultural Law and Taxation, “Wind Energy Production: Legal Issues and Related Liability Concerns for Landowners in Iowa and Across the Nation”
Wind power will generate beneficial local tax revenues for a very short amount of time. The wind farm companies fail to mention there is a sundown provision of the tax statute on the taxes paid from the turbines. After 2011, wind farm companies will be able to state that turbines are personal property, and therefore not taxed as real estate. The turbine companies are known to claim that only the inexpensive cement slab (upon which the turbine is erected) should be assessed as real estate. —Source: Hinshaw & Culbertson law office, Rockford, IL
Your school district may not receive the tax money it is promised. The nearby Crescent Ridge wind farm has appealed the property tax payments to the school district, claiming only the concrete turbine base is taxable property. The wind farm’s tax assessment was based in 2005 and 2006 on the premise that 100 percent of the value each wind farm structure was taxable property.
Crescent Ridge appealed the county’s taxation decision, saying only the concrete foundation of each wind turbine should be taxed, which was a very small percentage of the value of the structure, which is comprised of a tower, nacelle and three rotor blades.
“The PES [Princeton Elementary School] agreement with Crescent Ridge gives the wind farm a total property tax credit from PES of $141,223 for the next three years, which means a tax reduction of about $47,074 for each of the years to PES.” —Source: Bureau County Republican, January 27, 2010
Wind Turbines Affect Your Land & Your Business
The Illinois Agricultural Aviation Association has voted NOT to treat farmland on which wind turbines have been installed. President Chuck Holzwarth recently said in an article in Farmweek, “If you put up a wind farm, that ground can never be treated by an airplane.” The IAAA also passed a resolution against treating farmland around wind turbines or adjacent acres as it represents a hazard to the pilot.
Cady Aerial Spray in Deer Grove, IL, recently sent a letter to its customers stating: “Any field within or adjacent to a wind farm that we may deem treatable will likely incur additional cost due to the increased time necessary to make such an application and the risk factors involved.”
According to the current Green River Wind Farm contract, landowners cannot construct any buildings on their land without approval of the developer. “The Landowner covenants and agrees that neither the Landowner nor any Landowner Parties shall: construct or install any structure on the Lands without first meeting with Developer and Developer’s engineers so that Developer and Developer’s engineers can work with Landowner to determine a site for the structure which does not impact Developer’s Leasehold Rights and Easements.” [Excerpt from Mainstream’s Green River Contract]
The wind company can place transmission lines and equipment with unlimited amounts of voltage both above and underground. “The Transmission Easement shall permit Mainstream to erect, install, construct, replace, maintain, repair, operate, upgrade, re-locate, increase voltage of, and use multiple underground and/or overhead electrical distribution, collection and/or transmission lines, poles, foundations, conduit, cables, junction boxes, meters and protection equipment including without limitation, all other equipment and facilities related to the transmission of electrical energy and communications (all of whichshall also constitute Works) (collectively, ‘Transmission Equipment’) all together with appropriate rights of way on, along, over, under and across the Lands at such locations as Mainstream shall determine in its sole discretion, and to and from adjacent properties.” [Excerpt from Mainstream’s Green River Contract]
Landowners must sign a non-disturbance agreement to obtain a mortgage, lien or lease to the property. This could significantly impact your ability to obtain a mortgage loan or to refinance your current mortgage. —Source: Richard S. Porter, Attorney, Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP, Rockford, IL
Heavy equipment is damaging to drain tiles. The trucks and cranes working on the turbines weigh up to 200,000 pounds. Damage to tiles can decrease crop production.
Many wind farm companies state that the payment from salvaging the metal will outweigh the cost to decommission the turbine. According to Tom Hewson of Energy Ventures Analysis, Inc., the estimated costs for decommissioning [taking down the turbine] may be inaccurate because the methodologies used by turbine companies vary greatly. Mr. Hewson has personally witnessed turbine companies overestimate salvage values (and therefore underestimate decommissioning costs) by as much as 79 percent.
Concerns about Mainstream’s Proposed Lease Agreement
Contracts from Mainstream on the Green River wind farm project have been reviewed by Attorney Richard S. Porter of the law offices of Hinshaw & Culbertson in Rockford. Porter points out the following issues in the proposed contracts from Mainstream that all landowners should be aware of:
- One-sided contract — Only Mainstream may unilaterally terminate
- Broad easement grants
- Unlimited access and right to build roads
- No limit on size and scope of facility
- Landowner must consent to easements for any effects attributable to the project, including noise, vibration, shadow flicker, electrical & radio interference, etc.
- Decommissioning: No financial assurances
- Assessment Term can be as long as 8 years and the first 4 years is only for a one-time payment of $10 per acre.
- May be able to tie up land for 70 years and pay just $5 an acre per year
- Unilateral confidentiality
- Easements for turbine effects are for the subject property & all landowner’s adjacent properties.
The Informed Farmers Coalition Recommends Before You Sign
- Talk with an unbiased attorney to review any contracts.
- Talk to your neighbors — have they really signed?
For more information, call 779-423-7589
Email info@informedfarmers.org
INFORMED FARMERS COALITION
104 Liberty St.
Walnut, IL 61376
Know the facts before you sign!
Download original document: “Know the facts before you sign!”
Wind Turbine Setbacks
Source: McCann, Michael
On behalf of my clients and as a real estate valuation advisor to the elected officials of Adams County, I am hereby submitting my written testimony as a professional real estate appraiser. …
1. Residential property values are adversely and measurably impacted by close proximity of industrial-scale wind energy turbine projects to the residential properties, with value losses measured up to 2-miles from the nearest turbine(s), in some instances.
2. Impacts are most pronounced within “footprint” of such projects, and many ground-zero homes have been completely unmarketable, thus depriving many homeowners of reasonable market-based liquidity or pre-existing home equity.
3. Noise and sleep disturbance issues are mostly affecting people within 2-miles of the nearest turbines and 1-mile distances are commonplace, with many variables and fluctuating range of results occurring on a household by household basis.
4. Real estate sale data typically reveals a range of 25% to approximately 40% of value loss, with some instances of total loss as measured by abandonment and demolition of homes, some bought out by wind energy developers and others exhibiting nearly complete loss of marketability.
5. Serious impact to the “use & enjoyment” of many homes is an on-going occurrence, and many people are on record as confirming they have rented other dwellings, either individual families or as a homeowner group-funded mitigation response for use on nights when noise levels are increased well above ambient background noise and render their existing homes untenable.
6. Reports often cited by industry in support of claims that there is no property value, noise or health impacts are often mischaracterized, misquoted and/or are unreliable. The two most recent reports touted by wind developers and completed in December 2009 contain executive summaries that are so thoroughly cross-contingent that they are better described as “disclaimers” of the studies rather than solid, scientifically supported conclusions. Both reports ignore or fail to study very relevant and observable issues and trends.
7. If Adams County approves a setback of 1,000 feet, 1,500 feet, or any distance less than 2-miles, these types of property use and property value impacts are likely to occur to the detriment of Adams County residences and citizens for which the nearest turbines are proposed to be located.
8. The approval of wind energy projects within close proximity to occupied homes is tantamount to an inverse condemnation, or regulatory taking of private property rights, as the noise and impacts are in some respects a physical invasion, an easement in gross over neighboring properties, and the direct impacts reduce property values and the rights of nearby neighbors.
9. A market value reduction of $6.5 million is projected for the residential property located in the footprint and within 2-miles of the pending Prairie Mills project located in east Adams County.
Download original document: “Wind Turbine Setbacks and Property Values”
Wind energy farm erosion, McLean County, Ill. (photos)
Source: Anon.
Twin Groves Wind Farm, located mostly in McLean County east of Bloomington, Ill., currently has 240 1.65-MW Vestas turbines. The second phase of 120 was completed early 2008. At least 240 more are planned by Horizon in this area to [create] one of the largest future wind farms in the US.
According to Wikipedia: “McLean County boasts some of the richest soil in the world. Only patches of farmland in Argentina, southern Ukraine and along the Yellow River in China match the fertile ground that covers much of the northern half of Illinois, particularly a high-yielding band through the state’s midsection. It is the top-producing county in the United States for both corn and soybeans.”
These pictures were taken Sunday [April 26, 2009] in Twin Groves after being told by a local farmer about a farmer friend who signed a contract with a wind developer and now wants out of his contract after seeing the erosion around the turbines and access roads. He has decided it would be difficult to farm around them, but the developer will not let him out of his contract.
