May 8, 2012
Michigan

Muskegon County’s final wind-farm lease to include lawsuit protection

By Eric Gaertner, www.mlive.com 7 May 2012

MUSKEGON COUNTY, MI – Muskegon County is set to sign off Thursday on a final lease agreement, including a special protection against a potential lawsuit, that may eventually lead to construction of a wind farm on the wastewater site.

That final lease agreement includes an indemnification agreement that helps protect Muskegon County from any potential lawsuits stemming from the proposed working arrangement between Gamesa Energy USA and Scandia Wind. The Muskegon County Board of Public Works is set to consider the indemnification agreement at its 3:30 p.m. board meeting Thursday.

Gamesa, the lead company for the proposed development, and Scandia Wind had been considering a potential partnership as the private development team, Muskegon Wind, but those talks apparently failed to reach an agreement. County officials have said they always were working through Gamesa, a Spanish-based wind farm developer, and the proposed arrangement with Scandia did not factor into the lease agreement.

Scandia Wind originally proposed a larger wind-energy development, featuring offshore wind farms in Lake Michigan off the Pentwater and Grand Haven coasts, along with a land-based wind farm on the wastewater site.

The proposed indemnification agreement states, “To the fullest extent permitted by law, Muskegon Wind shall defend, indemnify and hold harmless the county, its subsidiaries, departments, divisions and agencies and their respective officials, officers, directors, employees and agents from and against any and all liability, litigation, causes of action and claims brought by Scandia …”

Gamesa Energy recently executed the lease agreement, giving the company exclusive rights to investigate constructing a 150-megawatt wind farm on the 11,000-acres Muskegon County Wastewater System in Egelston and Moorland townships. The county is set to consider final approval of the lease Thursday.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2012/05/08/muskegon-countys-final-wind-farm-lease-to-include-lawsuit-protection/