The NEXTera Energy wind farm has 250 wind turbines that dot the landscape north of Limon. Wind generation provides a secondary benefit to rural communities, in that it saves about 226 gallons of water per person in the U.S. each year, according to the American Wind Energy Association. (Denver Post file)
Re: Colorado farmers reap $9 million in payments from turbines, March 26 business news story.
Agriculture is facing some tough challenges right now. Commodity prices are at 10-year lows and still facing downward pressure; the strengthening dollar is making things worse; and oil and gas royalties are a fraction of what they used to be. Times are tough in rural Colorado.
The good news is we have some diversification from renewable energy production. These payments from wind farms are steady, and steady is a good thing right now.
The opportunities created from wind energy may not seem like much to a Front Range with millions of people and hundreds of thousands of jobs, but to a county with a few thousand residents, 10 to 20 steady, high-paying jobs are a godsend.
The wind farms provide an important stable source of revenue for rural counties, too. As a commissioner, I can count on that source of money as a base for our county s needs. As much as I like oil and gas development, the revenue stream tends to be cyclical. But one constant in eastern Colorado is that the wind is going to blow.
In Lincoln County, we see wind development as a win-win, and we don t get many of those. The people in Boulder want renewable energy, and we want to be here to produce it for them.
Doug Stone, Limon
The writer is a Lincoln County commissioner.
This letter was published in the April 11 edition.
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