After four years, workers start clearing wind turbine junk from Minnesota community 

An excavator this week took aim at a pile of wind turbine blades in a vacant lot, knocking one enormous segment to the earth, where it landed with a boom.

Workers wrapped ropes around the thing, lifted it into the air and lowered it slowly onto the bed of a semi trailer truck. Then a trucker hauled it away, kicking up dust as the vehicle rumbled down a gravel road.

(photos: Anthony Souffle/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

It was a sight this small community south of Rochester has been waiting for since 2020. Late that year, more than 100 used wind turbine blades were abandoned in the empty Grand Meadow lot.

Two companies promised to recycle the blades. Yet both went belly-up, leaving the city with an eyesore and a home to unwanted wildlife and a safety risk because kids were climbing on the pile.

James Christian, the city administrator, watched the dwindling junk mountain on Thursday. “People are happy and excited,” he said.

Christian had worried the city would be stuck with the expensive and difficult task of blade disposal. So did two property owners leasing the land.

But in September, the state’s Public Utilities Commission (PUC) intervened, ordering NextEra Energy, a large Florida-based renewable power developer, to take responsibility. NextEra Energy had intended to recycle the decommissioned blades after retrofitting a nearby wind farm.

Contractors for NextEra Energy started moving the blades on Tuesday and should finish by the end of October.

It’s unclear where the blades are headed from here. NextEra told the PUC it would move them to a more suitable storage site in Kansas or a recycling facility in Missouri. But the company didn’t answer questions this week, and KAAL TV in Rochester reported the infrastructure was headed to an Iowa recycler.

Either way, Christian said he’s happy to move on to more traditional city business, like sewer and water upgrades.

One PUC commissioner joked that Grand Meadow would throw a parade when the junk finally left the town. While that hasn’t happened, Christian said there’s been plenty of rubberneckers since the removal began on Tuesday.

At first, the workers were shoving blade parts across the truck bed, sending a piercing sound across the city that Christian compared to “dinosaurs screeching.”

“Some people talk about how they can hear it happening,” he said. “No complaints, though.”

Darcy Richardson lives next to the turbine blades, which are stacked to the edge of her property. An avid gardener, Richardson had put dreams of a backyard patio oasis on hold with her view ruined. Now, she’s gearing up for a busy spring. Richardson doesn’t know exactly what she will plant yet, but there are “probably more of my delightful hostas” in store for the shaded area.

“My husband, unfortunately, is going to have a lot of work to do,” she said, laughing.

Richardson reflected on the saga as trucks beeped in the background.

“I’ve never really thought that when you bring something to the government’s attention that they would actually do something about it,” she said.

State officials and labor unions said it was important to act not just to help Grand Meadow, but to keep goodwill in rural areas that are home to the large and growing number of carbon-free energy infrastructures necessary for a transition away from fossil fuels.

The disposal of used turbine blades has caused controversy and frustration from Iowa to Texas. Iowa’s attorney general sued a Washington state company last week, alleging Global Fiberglass Solutions violated solid waste laws for years by stashing roughly 1,300 blades sit at three sites across Iowa.

Christian said Thursday that wind farms still are an important part of the economy that he wouldn’t reject.

“I don’t think this has left a bad taste in everybody’s mouth about wind power,” he said. “I think it’s just made people a little more cautious. Next time somebody comes to repower, there’s going to be a lot of eyes on them, about where it’s going and who is involved.”