Mesa Power Takes Wind Campaign, Landowners on the Road to Show How Region Can Benefit From Proposed Wind Farm

SWEETWATER, Texas, April 2, 2008 /PRNewswire/ -- Mesa Power officials are taking their show on the road to give landowners in Carson, Gray, Hemphill, Roberts and Wheeler counties a first-hand look how its proposed 4,000-megawatt wind farm will help improve both the pocketbooks of local land owners and the region's economy.

Mesa Power took a group of about twenty landowners on its first organized tour of Sweetwater March 24, so that they could "see firsthand the forest instead of the individual trees," says Mesa Power's land consultant Steve Sykes. "They could see how wind farming has affected the ranchers, landowners, citizenry, schools, town, counties and the economies in the Sweetwater area."

Mesa Power represents an additional innovative approach by a T. Boone Pickens-led coalition of Texas Panhandle landowners who have lived and worked the region's rolling hills for generations. A booming Texas population is demanding that the state find some far-reaching power and water supply solutions. The state needs diversity in its power options.

In August of 2007, Mesa Power filed documents to add 4,000 megawatts of wind-generated electricity to the power grid in Texas. The filing, with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), details plans for the world's largest wind farm, with construction starting in 2009 and power deliveries to begin in 2011. The project will have as many as 2,700 turbines on up to 200,000 acres in the Texas Panhandle. ERCOT, which operates as part of the Texas Public Utility Commission (PUC), manages the state's power grid. Mesa Power plans to construct a power line and deliver the electricity to either the Oklaunion or Anna substations.

The Sweetwater area, which has had turbines operating since 2001, is a hotbed for wind power generation. Sweetwater mayor Greg Wortham acted as tour guide for the Mesa Power visitors, taking the guests to different wind turbine projects so that they could examine individual turbines operating up close and hear the level of noise they create, a row of 50 turbines stretched out for construction, and participate in a question-and-answer session with an area landowner who has turbines operating on his property.

"If you look at wind maps, the Great Plains is a ripe region for wind farms," notes Wortham, who also works as an industry consultant through the West Texas Wind Energy Consortium, which is promoting renewable energy in the region. "The area has been generally neglected from an economic standpoint," he says. "This is the best rural development delivery system since rural electrification."

Among the interested parties going to Sweetwater was Dwight Fiveash, the executive director of the Pampa Economic Development Commission, who noted that Mesa Power had "begun the process of gaining a new industry in the Panhandle of Texas, and for this we appreciate Boone Pickens' vision into the future."

An Austin-based Resource Economics Inc. economic impact study, commissioned by Mesa Power, projects that the Mesa Power wind farm will amount to significant increases in jobs and income for the five counties of the project investment zone (Carson, Gray, Hemphill, Roberts and Wheeler counties). In addition to the jobs and income the project is expected to create, it will likely boost significant new wind machine manufacturing facilities in Texas, and that wind energy research centers will be expanded at Texas universities and colleges, the report concludes.

The study forecast the project would generate an estimated 1,495 jobs during the construction phase, and 720 during a typical year of the operation phase; earnings in the project investment zone will rise by $68.7 million per year during the construction phase, and $119.8 million during the operation phase. The larger impact during the operation phase is largely due to lease payments to be made to landowners in the project area amounting to $65.3 million per year.

Resource Economics estimates that the total value of economic output in the region due to the project will be $382.6 million per year during the construction phase and $1.6 billion per year during the operation period, and additions to the tax rolls of school districts in the project investment zone will amount to $2.4 billion by 2018, assuming the school districts approve an application to limit appraisal values during the project's first 10 years.

Wortham often calls West Texas "the fourth-largest nation in wind energy today," behindGermany,Spain, andIndia. His consortium is busy trying to cast aside the misplaced concerns that wind turbines are too noisy, ugly, or that they scare wildlife and livestock, and seeks to find maximized regional benefit from wind power.

"Members of the community can come down to see the magnitude that Boone Pickens is talking about in the Panhandle as it already exists," Wortham explains. "It no longer becomes a far-fetched notion. They can see what it looks like. Did it obliterate the town? No, it built new schools, created new jobs, and people have better cars and houses. Kids are staying after high school, or coming right back after college. Grandkids are moving back. What did it do to cattle and cotton? They can see the agriculture operations firsthand. Seeing all of these positives during their visit is dispelling whatever negative notions they might have about these projects."

"We want to impress upon people that this wind project is not just an alternative income stream for them," says Mesa Power's Sykes. "It has far-reaching economic advantages for their communities as well. Going down to Sweetwater helps them alleviate some of their concerns, that it won't upset their farming operations or hunting excursions, or scare their horses in the next pasture.

"The wind farms have attracted ancillary businesses, such as blade, tower, nacel repair and manufacturing companies, into what had been a economically challenged area," he says. "General Electric now operates a nerve center in the area that monitors 1,000 turbines twenty-four-seven, and are in charge of maintenance and repair, keeping the turbines working at 97 percent efficiency at all times."

The Sweetwater trip occurred on a Monday; by the end of the week calls of interest were coming in to the office from both those who were on the trip and other landowners they had spoken with since. "One person who went on the trip had been on the fence for about six months," Sykes reports. "Tuesday, he came into the Mesa Power offices and started the lease paperwork process."

Mesa Power is planning smaller tours, perhaps once a week, for interested landowners.

Photos available upon request.

SOURCE Mesa Power

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