Blackford County Receives RLF Funding

By Cynthia Payne
NT Editor/Publisher

newstimes@comcast.net
Published: Wednesday, March 24, 2010 6:09 AM CDT

Making money is the bottom line.

Nearly every one of the more than a hundred people at the wind development information meeting at Montpelier School Monday evening, March 22, admitted that’s why they were attending.

But the speakers had a common theme to make that happen and still protect yourself and your land: pool your resources and work together.

“We got a group of landowners together, pooled our acres and interviewed companies to see which would give us a better deal. Then we were on the driving end of it,” said Drew Cleveland, regional manager for Indiana Farm Bureau (IFB). He noted he is a Randolph County resident. “It looks like a wind project is going over there,” he added.


The meeting was sponsored by the Blackford County Commissioners and Blackford County Economic Development Corp. to help local farmers be prepared when wind development companies approach them. Wesco Wind of Markle has signed up several Blackford County landowners for a proposed project in Blackford and Wells counties.

Justin Schneider, a staff attorney with IFB, spoke about legal aspects of contracts, leases and easements, and Curt Emanuel, extension educator with Clinton County Purdue Ext., spoke about some of the issues and practical matters that were encountered in his county.

“You’re all here because you want the money,” noted Schneider. “I get a lot of calls from people who say they were approached (by a wind developer) and asking if they were being offered enough money.”

But the up front or annual payments are not all you should be concerned about, Schneider said. “If all you’re thinking about is the money, you won’t be happy,” he advised.

“While it is about the money, don’t get carried away. For that extra $500 you might get each year, consider if it’s worth the extra headache (in what you give up for the extra money),” Schneider said.

In addition, in nearly all instances, everyone in the wind farm area is paid the same. “Generally, what you get is what your neighbor gets,” he noted.

That can be a flat fee per wind turbine, it can be a flat fee per turbine plus a percentage of net profits or a higher percentage of profits but no payment for the turbine.

“So whoever gets the best deal will be for everyone. If you think you can hold out for better, it won’t work,” he said.

Some landowners will receive different amounts, however, based on access roads (which take several acres of farmland out of production) and other factors.

The landowners in Benton County, the site of the state’s largest and first wind farm, did not make the most money because they were first, he noted. “Then landowners figured out they can pool their resources and get the best deal,” Schneider said.

Schneider listed the elements that go into compensation:

1. Land value (before the wind farm)

2. Burden on the land (what is being taken out of production)

3. Duration (you are signing a contract that will affect your children and grandchildren)

4. Associated damages (they don’t care if you have crops, they drive across it; broken drainage tile, even 5-10 years down the road, etc.) and tenant v. landlord (who is incurring the loss if crops are damaged, and be sure to record a lease between landowners and those who rent the land)

5. Future sale of property (if there might be a housing development or industrial park on the land in the future, is the land worth more)

6. Sentimental value (will it change the character of your farm, if your great-grandmother planted those trees, can you live with them being cut down)

7. Value of use (will you make more from those acres where the wind turbine is located than from farming them, such as earning $5,000 a year on a half acre plus access road)

8. Property tax impacts (the wind company should pay the increase in property taxes, if your taxes were $25 an acre and will now be $100 an acre, the company should pay the extra $75 and that should be in your contract or the extra taxes could eat up everything you make)

“At the end of the day, you don’t want to be any worse off than you were before. You want them to compensate you for all the damage,” Schneider said.



See the rest of the story in the Wednesday, March 24 print edition of the News Times