Wind Farm Fuels Debate
Jul. 25–The first wind energy farm in eastern Kansas is under construction in a section of pristine tallgrass prairie 50 miles east of Wichita.
Digging began despite a debate over wind farms in the Flint Hills. The debate has split the community in Butler County and the rest of the state.
The Elk River wind farm is in the Flint Hills just south of U.S. 400. If it had been north of the highway, construction would probably still be on hold.
Gov. Kathleen Sebelius last year asked developers to refrain from building in the Flint Hills for an undetermined period of time because of concerns that wind farms would damage the prairie. So far, developers have agreed to delay building north of U.S. 400.
Still, opponents are unhappy that they are losing what they consider to be intact tallgrass prairie.
“Man, I hate that to be destroyed,” Larry Patton, president of Protect the Flint Hills, said of the prairie where the wind farm is being built. He is a fifth-generation landowner in the Flint Hills.
“The Flint Hills is the last of an ecosystem, the last significant tallgrass prairie on the planet,” he said. “Do we as a nation destroy that ecosystem in the name of industrial development? That shouldn’t happen.”
But Pete Ferrell, one of four ranchers in Butler County who signed leases with PPM, a Scottish power company, said the prairie is not being destroyed.
He pointed out that the prairie already had been disturbed years ago when utility transmission grids were buried there.
Ferrell said the turbines are graceful and quiet. Cattle will graze right up to the base of the tower.
“The grass will be just as green, the cattle just as fat, the water just as clear,” he said.
Each of the 100 turbines will be 362 feet tall and will sit on one acre of land, and the entire development will cover 8,000 acres. The $190 million project will provide 150 megawatts of electricity to the Empire District Electric Co. in Joplin, Mo.
The first turbines are expected to be erected in three to four weeks, said Jan Johnson, a spokeswoman with PPM, which says it is the largest developer of wind energy in the United States.
Kansas has only one wind farm so far. It is southwest of Dodge City and is owned by Florida Power & Light.
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