Wind turbine developer meets with Harrisburg landowners
German-based company E.ON Climate & Renewables held a meeting Wednesday with landowners about a proposed wind development project near Harrisburg.
The company wants to build wind turbines in the northern Boone County area.
E.ON gave people at the meeting a map of the area the company is looking at. The entire box includes an area that could potentially be used for the wind farm, while the shaded area represents Harrisburg parcels, which are the target land for the wind farm. E.ON says it would lease land and the lessors would get a percentage of the money the company makes from the project.
Charles Truelove is a landowner in the prospective wind farm area and attended tonight’s meeting. He said there did not seem to be many attendees who were strongly for or against the project.
“Most everyone seemed to be more curious than anything else at this point,” Truelove said.
Matt Tulis, the communications manager at E.ON, said there are a lot of variables that go into the percentage of the revenue the landowners get. These include how much power is sold, where the land is located, how strong the wind is and how much energy it is providing.
However, Tulis said the project is still in its very early stages. The meeting tonight was supposed to provide the community with information about the project as well as the company itself.
The company contacted the landowners who could be involved and invited them to the Wednesday dinner meeting. One local farmer, Ashley Ernst, said she got the letter Feb. 15. Ernst hosted a neighborhood meeting with another landowner, Terrie Nagel, Saturday to inform the community about the proposed development.
“We had about 150 people come and the purpose of the meeting was to talk about wind farms and maybe some of the issues that arise when those turbines are built, such as the noise,” Nagel said.
The group developed a list of nearly 100 questions at the previous neighborhood meeting. Nagel gave these questions to E.ON representatives at the meeting.
Some of the questions include:
How many acres are needed for each wind turbine and the additional components required? Please specify area needed for each component. What is the landscape design of the 100-150 turbines planned? What effect will this design have on any shadow flicker, strobe effect, infrasound and noise experienced by landowners? Do you have real estate data for other wind farm areas? Do the data show changes in property values? Changes in average time to sale?
Nagel said she expects a response within a week.
