Common Sense DispatchA publication of the Kansas Alliance for Responsible Renewable Energy If Protecting Skylines Preserving Agricultural Land Ensuring Quality of Life for All Kansans
Common Sense Dispatch, May 2020In this issue:
Not all non-essential business suspended during pandemic Due to the coronavirus pandemic, many business operations and government functions have been put on hold to minimize the spread of the COVID-19 disease. By orders from federal, state, and local authorities, businesses and government agencies, except those deemed essential, which normally conduct person-to-person contact have been required to suspend operations until further notice. In addition, all Kansas district and appellate courts, as well as Clerks of the Court and court services offices, closed their doors effective March 19th to all but the most serious and essential matters. At a time when Kansans were sheltering-in-place, Expedition Wind LLC, a subsidiary of National Renewable Solutions of Wayzata, Minnesota, filed a surprising lawsuit against six Marion County residents seeking damages in excess of $35 million. The basis for this action stems from two lawsuits filed by the residents last year: the first against the Marion County Planning Commission and the second against the Marion County Board of County Commissioners. In their suit against the Planning Commission, residents contend the commission improperly approved a Conditional Use Permit (CUP) for Expedition Wind’s proposed industrial wind project. The residents also claim they were not notified of the Planning Commission’s meetings as required by state law and county ordinance. In the resident’s lawsuit against the County Commission, they argue that the CUP should not have been granted based on the improper recommendation of the Planning Commission. They also claim the County Commission should not have approved the CUP because Expedition Wind arbitrarily drew its project borders with the express intent of undermining a Kansas statute that is designed to allow landowners adjacent to the project property to sign protest petitions. Had the project borders been drawn in standard fashion, the number of protest petitions that were gathered by the residents would have forced a unanimous vote from the three commissioners in order to approve the project. The result would have been a denial of the CUP because Commissioner Dianne Novak has consistently voted against the project. In response to the residents’ lawsuits, in October of 2019, Expedition Wind legally intervened in the suit between the residents and the Marion County Commission, claiming the action of the residents created a financial hardship to the wind company and to the landowners who had signed leases. On March 30, 2020 - the first day of Governor Laura Kelly’s stay-at-home order - Expedition Wind warned the residents that if they didn’t dismiss their lawsuit against the Marion County Board of County Commissioners by April 1, 2020, they would face legal action from Expedition Wind. On April 17th, Expedition Wind filed a lawsuit against Randy Eitzen, Tom Britain, Susan Mayo, Steven Butts, and Brandon and Michelle Butts, the residents, and plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the Marion County Commission. Expedition Wind asserts that the lawsuit brought by the residents against the County Commission is only intended to cause delay to their project, making it “infeasible or impossible for Expedition Wind to construct the Project”. Expedition Wind further claims that the actions of Eitzen have caused them to lose taxpayer-funded production tax credits and other income sources. Marion County residents have not filed any legal action directly against Expedition Wind nor are they preventing Expedition Wind from starting construction of the wind project. Expedition Wind has elected not to begin construction while litigation is pending between the residents and the Board of County Commissioners. In other counties, where residents have filed lawsuits concerning the approvals of industrial projects, the wind companies have begun construction while the suits are pending. On April 23, 2020, the Peabody Gazette-Bulletin reported, “Patrick Pelstring, CEO of Expedition Wind, said the $35 million sought from Eitzen is an actual loss of production tax credits suffered by the company because of delays caused by Eitzen’s lawsuits.” In a Letter to the Editor of the Hillsboro Free Press dated December 5,2019, Pelstring wrote,“Expedition has sent ‘settlement’ offers to all of the plaintiffs in the pending lawsuit against the County and indirectly Expedition Wind. We have made fair offers, based on their relative proximity to the wind farm.” Pelstring went on to say, “We are hopeful that this effort will resolve the current and future legal issues, and show folks of our earnest attempt to make things right for all parties involved, including our supporters – who we believe represent the vast majority of the community. But if not, we will seek all necessary legal resolutions to prevail, as we did in the first two lawsuits.” The recent lawsuit brought by Expedition Wind against the six Marion County residents was filed nearly a month after normal state court functions were severely limited by the COVID-19 outbreak. This has caused several of the defendants to question why Expedition did not file its lawsuit much sooner, or why it didn’t wait to file until the pandemic restrictions are lifted. Dave Oas, Labette County, Kansas
Fishing For Facts The truth about industrial wind energy is mired in a cesspool of U.S. special interest agendas – it has been for years. Tax dollars were used to dig this stink hole and our continuing tax subsidies keep it filled; all the while we’re told it smells like lavender. More Kansans find themselves considering the impacts that commercial-scale wind energy projects have on rural communities. As you begin educating yourself on what the positive and negative aspects are, you’ll find there’s no shortage of information; in fact, there’s a big ol’ cesspool of it. Admittedly, not everything that comes from the wind industry is fertilizer. Occasionally you’ll hook a bit of objective fact, but it's a chore to sort out and piece together everything you reel in. It’s a messy process that’s easy to fall out of love with. All you want is irrefutable evidence that industrial wind energy is good, or it's bad. Unfortunately, nothing is irrefutable. If I sold dirt as a low-fat dietary supplement, I could find experts to back my claims with scientific studies as long as they were sufficiently incentivized; I might even convince lawmakers to subsidize me. Sadly, I don’t have access to that much capital or political clout. The renewable energy industry has plenty of both. Many wind energy proponents are eager to provide half-truths dressed up to look like concrete facts. For example, the claim that commercial wind energy production doesn’t release CO2 into the atmosphere is TRUE - kind of. Even when an advocacy group acknowledges that the manufacture, transportation, and construction of commercial wind energy components consumes lots of fossil fuels, they mitigate the admission by claiming that the carbon footprint is quickly offset. Here are some facts this industry doesn’t freely share about greenhouse gases:
There's much more misleading, incomplete, or false information sold as absolute fact. To be fair though, this highly charged debate nurtures truth-stretching on all sides. After spending an afternoon reading entirely contradictory facts about the very same issue, you may begin to question what “truth” is and whether or not it even still exists. Yes It does, and it’s more accessible than you might imagine. In my continuing quest to find The Wholly-factual Grail, I have learned to use a two-factor litmus test for weighing conflicting data: MOTIVATIONS – Why do information sources support the data they share? With respect to the wind energy industry, the recurring motive seems to boil down to generating money for a few landowners and host counties, but more importantly, for developers and utility companies to receive huge Production Tax Credit Subsidies. Surprisingly, little effort is spent on promoting any green aspects of wind energy and virtually none about conserving energy overall. Many of us who oppose specific projects don't oppose all projects, as long as they’re sited responsibly. Motivations of opposition groups can be money related as well (loss of property values), but they also include health and safety concerns, environmental impact considerations, and preserving quality of life. METHODS – What tactics are used to achieve goals? Almost without exception, wind energy developers secretly groom potential project sites for up to two years before making their intentions publicly known. After developers step out of the shadows, it’s not uncommon for them to use money to entice, or threats of lawsuits to coerce, landowners, local commissions, and governing boards into accepting their terms. By contrast, opposition groups share information and experiences via social media, websites, and town hall meetings to keep communities apprised of what’s happening. They also encourage communities to insist upon adequate safeguards and assurances from local governing boards before construction is permitted. So, where is this “source of truth”? It exists with your ability to apply common sense and reason. Ultimately, we are the jury that must consider the evidence, sort out the chaff, deliberate among ourselves, and render a verdict. If it doesn’t smell like lavender, it isn’t. Dave Oas, Labette County, Kansas From the TrenchesGreetings to all “From the Trenches” of McPherson County. I wrote in last month’s column that I had compiled a list of topics to discuss in this column going forward. Little did I realize then that another topic would overtake them all. So, for this month’s topic, I am going to write about all the uncertainty and what you can be working on at home amidst it all. Over the past 23 months, I’ve had a to-do list every day for writing, calling, educating, holding meetings and educational events regarding industrial wind, and they were never-ending lists. Now, I find myself having a hard time making any lists. When I do, I weigh whether it’s important or even possible to do now due to mandatory “Stay at Home Orders”. One question that COVID-19 has answered for us all is, “What is really important in my life?” For some of you, fighting industrial wind projects in your county may still be in the very forefront, especially if building has begun or getting close to taking place. Our county still has a moratorium in place, so the urgency in our area is not as critical right now. The historian in me tells me that this virus is going to change everything regarding your fight. We seem to be coming to the top of the virus curve in many states. But rest assured, there will most likely be a second wave possibly this fall that could mutate or be far worse than the first wave. There could also be a third wave. Studying the history of pandemics tells us this is very likely. Check out this article - Why the Second Wave of the 1918 Spanish Flu Was So Deadly. There are many wind companies who are under strict deadlines to have their projects completed by the end of 2020. One uncertainty includes whether they can get the IRS or Congress to extend these deadlines. Other questions include: Will these companies be able to bring in workers from other states? Are investors pulling out? Do politicians have the political will to grant these companies relief? Most of the uncertainties will not have an answer anytime soon. In the meantime here are some things that you could or should be doing now from home, in order of importance.
Finally, here are some things to focus on this month.
“We’re doing the best we can, that’s all we can do.” Beverly Kavouras, McPherson County, Kansas Wind Energy and Insects"The Little Things that Run the World" Too many people have a fairy tale image of wind energy—as if it were a fairy godmother come to save us from climate change, those moving blades nothing more than her shimmering, diaphanous wings. But her dazzling aura disappears once wildlife is considered. In the real world, heavy machines in constant motion do not alight softly on the land. Indeed, we are just beginning to tally wind energy’s toll on ecosystems. First, we learned about birds, how eagles and hawks were being killed. Then we learned about bats, how wind energy is driving their decline. (See “Will Bats Survive Wind Energy?” Common Sense Dispatch, April 2020.) Now we are starting to learn about damage to a class of animals that, despite their lowly status, turn out to be essential to life on earth—Class Insecta, insects. As far back as 2001, researchers discovered that industrial wind developments (IWDs) were killing insects in numbers large enough to hamper electricity production. Insect body parts—exoskeletons and hemolymph--were accumulating on the blades. Those remains roughened the surfaces and interrupted the air flows to the point that productivity could be reduced by half. This was considered an industrial problem, not an ecological one, as insect populations were assumed to be so large that they could easily absorb all the deaths from blades. But a study published in 2018 found that turbine-caused mortality did pose population-wide threats to insects. Lead author Franz Trieb estimated that in Germany alone 1.2 trillion insects are killed every year by “wind parks” (as they’re called in Germany). Trieb found that the cruising altitude for many insects coincides with the sweep of rotors. He documented “high insect concentrations worldwide at altitudes between 20 and 220 metres above the ground—the very same altitudes occupied by the rotors of wind turbines.” He based his mortality numbers on analyses of insect residue scraped off of blades. The next step for researchers, he says, is to find a way to determine how many additional insects die of “barotrauma,” the pressure differential between the leading and trailing edge of blades that has proven so deadly to bats, by causing their internal organs to collapse. (The remains of exploded insects are more likely to dissipate than leave an obvious trace, so innovative research methods would be needed to calculate their numbers.) Still, he found the mortality from direct strikes alone to be worrisome: “Such a large number of affected insects could be a relevant factor for the stability of the insect population and could thus influence species protection and the food chain,” he concludes. Other researchers have explored additional threats to insect populations. Beside blade contact and barotrauma, IWDs subject insects to light pollution. The lights atop wind towers, required by the FAA, are an annoyance to neighboring humans, who are irritated by the non-stop blinking. But the lights are more than an irritant to insects, whose lives are keyed to day-night cycles and who are often fatally attracted to lights. Artificial lights disturb every aspect of insect development, from emergence to mating to predator-avoidance. “The evidence that light pollution has profound and serious impacts on ecosystems is overwhelmingly strong,” says the conservation group Buglife. Stating the problem even more starkly, a 2019 article in Biological Conservation describes light pollution as a “bringer of the insect apocalypse.” Indeed, that phrase, “insect apocalypse”--made famous in a 2018 New York Times Magazine article entitled “The Insect Apocalypse Is Here: What Does It Mean for the Rest of Life on Earth?”—indicates that we’ve moved way past the assumption that insect numbers are so vast that losses to IWDs make no difference. In a summary of recent research, author Brooke Jarvis describes the world-wide decline in the numbers of insects, posing a threat to ecosystems everywhere. With insect numbers plummeting, Jarvis describes fish scientists worried about mayflies and bird scientists worried food for insectivorous birds. Indeed, ornithologists are now contemplating the possibility that the well-documented decline of bird populations is due not only to habitat loss but also to starvation. Fish and birds are part of an entire eco-universe that depends on insects. Paraphrasing entomologist Scott Hoffman Black, Jarvis writes, “We worry about saving the grizzly bear, but where is the grizzly without the bee that pollinates the berries it eats or the flies that sustain baby salmon? Where, for that matter, are we?” Where, for that matter, are we? Black/Jarvis’s final question is one we humans need to ask ourselves. Certainly, we depend no less than grizzly bears on a healthy ecosystem. Seventy-five percent of our food crops are insect-pollinated, and when Jarvis asked scientists to describe an insect-poor world, he heard words like “resource wars,” “collapse,” and “Armageddon.” Yet it’s the constant growth of our infrastructure--what Jarvis calls “the relentless expansion of human spaces”--that is causing the crises for wildlife and ultimately for ourselves. No amount of fairy dust can make IWDs anything other than a part of this “relentless expansion of human spaces.” People can argue that IWDs are or are not a genuine alternative to fossil fuels—but neither side should ignore the industrial reality of IWDs and their impact on the natural world. Why believe in fairy godmothers when we still have so much to learn about the wondrous creatures that actually exist? Let’s pay attention to our wild neighbors, for the more we learn about them, the more we learn about ourselves—and the better we can chart the best ways forward toward a rich and vibrant future. And while we’re at it, let’s show some appreciation for humble but helpful six-legged beings, some of whom really do have iridescent, diaphanous wings. ----------------
~Margy Stewart
From My Front PorchTwo of my favorite things about the view from my front porch are the wheat fields that surround our house in all directions and the amazing Kansas sunsets that can’t be beat anywhere in the world. As a landscape photographer, I’m in the ideal location for capturing beautiful imagery. Of course, for this mom though, there’s a view that’s even better than these two things combined and it’s one that’s just a little closer to the porch. It’s the view of two boys and their giant dog growing up together in the country. Imagine for me if you will… tire swings, hay bale jumping, adventures exploring gravel roads, countless games of “Annie Annie Over” on farm sheds, lightening bug collections, and our very own barn cat welcome committee. The quiet, as well as the physical safety and mental peace we feel in this place, can’t be matched or quantified. We didn’t know when we chose to move to this AGRICULTURALLY zoned area five years ago that we’d someday be facing an out of control zoning committee who would not only allow, but encourage, an INDUSTRIAL wind farm in our AGRICULTURALLY zoned area. So now we fight to keep our front porch quiet and safe and peaceful for these two boys (as well as our country neighbors and friends who also did not sign up to live in an industrial power plant). Column: Diane F. Image: Diane F.
HELPFUL RESOURCESGlossary of Frequently Used Terms and Acronyms: Here on the KARRE website, you can find out what all those obscure terms used by the renewable energy companies really mean. PLEASE NOTEInformation contained in this newsletter is intended to be correct and reliable. If you believe any of the data or statements shared here are inaccurate or incomplete, please contact us. Corrections from April's Newsletter:
Send questions, corrections, and story suggestions to editor.karre@gmail.com.
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