Citizens express concerns for proposed Empire wind farms
The Missouri Public Service Commission held a public hearing Wednesday night on the campus of Missouri Southern in regards to two wind farm projects that Liberty Utilities–Empire District is proposing to construct and manage in both SW Missouri and SE Kansas.
One location would be in portions of Barton, Dade, Jasper and Lawrence counties in Missouri. This would be 140 turbines across two wind farms generating 300 megawatts of energy.
The other, consisting of 139 turbines generating 300 megawatts of energy, would be in Neosho County, Kansas.
73-year-old Joe Fisher lives on 30 acres in an area that would be impacted by the turbines. “These greedy a–holes…are gonna to make it so we can’t live in our house that I built. It will be so noisy and so much vibration that it will not be possible to live in that house,” Fisher said, fighting through tears. “We can’t afford to move, we can’t do anything. We’re stuck where we’re at and they’re going to ruin our lives.”
Fisher claims that the company is sneaky. “They started buying these leases over two years ago but they put a clause in the leases so the people couldn’t talk about it, so we found about this three months ago. It’s just heartbreaking…they’re a bunch of greedy tyrants and they’re basically stealing our property.”
Barton County Resident Steven Seely supports the project for several reasons including because “wind power is obviously cleaner energy than coal” Seely also cited his support for the economic benefits that landowners, like himself, would receive and that he just wants to be able to pass his farm down to his kids and that they will have clean air to breathe.
Blake Mertens is the Vice President for the Electric Division and he says the pros far outweigh the cons of the project. “We were able to determine these wind farms would provide our customers about $170 million savings in their rates over a 20-year period. Take that out over 30 years, maybe close to $300 million, so it’s a positive rate impact. It would provide local benefits to the economy through jobs and continued investments in our communities as well as property taxes and then a sustainable source of energy for our customers.”
“Initially it is going to cost $1.1 billion to build them. We will have a tax equity partner take advantage of production tax credits that will actually reduce for our customers by about half so our customers only have to pay for about half of that,” added Mertens.
Mertens says they go through a rigorous environmental review to make sure the turbines are not harmful to birds or other animals or the environment as a whole.
Formal evidentiary hearings will be held April 8-11 in Jefferson City, Missouri.
