“Talk about a runaround,” he said, smoothing a hand over his denim shirt.įehringer was among the first landowners to sign a wind company contract in Logan County, now at the center of a renewable energy push that has changed the horizon in northeast Colorado. Company representatives often pointed the finger at each in their responses. He riffled through a wooden chest of drawers one summer afternoon, sifting through letter after letter he’d sent asking about his contract. But Cinergy Global Power was involved at one point, the landowners’ agreements may have been moved to another LLC affiliated with EDF, and the Peetz project is now owned by an affiliate of Terra-Gen power, according to business records and messages Fehringer has received from the companies. Payments have kept coming from enXco, renamed EDF Renewables in 2012, which was contracted to provide operations and maintenance support for the project through the end of 2020. One turbine clinked and clanked for months before its nose fell off, sending fiberglass chunks plummeting into Fehringer’s field below, he said.įehringer is no longer sure what company owns the turbines. As years went by, blinking lights atop each tower - meant to warn airplanes - went haywire and resembled a “psychedelic light show” at night. He’d learned his contract paid far less than the industry standard and didn’t adjust for inflation. (Kathryn Scott, Special to The Colorado Sun) He keeps a pile of papers and letters in a drawer in his home that he has consistently sent to company officials, but he still has no clear answers. Over the years, Tom Fehringer has wanted to renegotiate his original contract, but the original project was sold and he can’t get an answer as to which company owns the turbines. “Nobody’s getting millions, but what it’s done to the property tax base, it’s been huge.”īut by 2001, the year the project became operational, Fehringer wanted to renegotiate. “You come out here dangling $1,000 and that’s big,” Fehringer said. The wind towers were attractive for another reason: enXco, the developer of the project, was offering landowners $1,000 per tower, per year. Eastern Plains' wind industry running into the same problems as fossil fuel industry Close
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