MONTEZUMA, Kansas — As long as the wind has been blowing through the Kansas plains, people have been harnessing it to do their work.
But it wasn’t until 2001 that the first large-scale, megawatt-generating wind farm took root outside this small town in southwestern Kansas and began to harness the power of breezes on a 21st-century scale.
For anyone with a wall socket, it began to change what turned on the lights. For the environment, the wind farm marked another step to lighten mankind’s footprint on the planet. For people in the shadows of those towering three-blade contraptions, it meant found money
“I like them,” said Orville Williams. “They’ve been a very great economic boost for this area.”
Williams has lived in Montezuma in Gray County since 1961. He was one of the first people to lease part of his land to the company now known as NextEra Energy.
The turbines are now almost as common on a drive across Kansas as cattle, wheat and roadkill. But that’s all happened in the past 20 years.
As the call for transitioning away from burning fossil fuels to produce electricity grows and, with it, the push for more wind and solar farms, Montezuma’s experience hints at the money the giant pinwheels can bring — even if the industry now faces strong resistance in some corners of Midwest.
The Gray County Wind Farm is made up of 170 turbines capable of making enough electricity in a year to power about 35,000 homes.
In the 20 years of farming around the towers, Williams said he’s never really had any problems.
Sure, you can hear them, he said, but you’ve got to be real close.
“(But) most people around here,” he said, “I don’t think even notice them anymore.”
It’s been valuable enough for him that he recently signed a new 20-year lease. But it’s not just landowners with turbines who cash in.
Counties who let them go up get paid too. While wind farms are tax-exempt in Kansas, counties generally work out separate payment agreements with the energy companies to make up for some of the property tax losses.
The Gray County Wind Farm, for instance, meant $5.3 million in payments to the county. Anytime you can get money, but you’ve gotten the money from an outside source instead of having to get it from your local population, then it’s a win-win.
