By ANN HINCH
Assistant Editor

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — So, a developer has made an offer to lease part of your farmland to install some turbines as part of a larger wind farm to generate electricity. You don’t have to build or maintain it; you just have to sit back and collect the rent payments.

Not every lessee thinks it’s that simple, but just getting an offer is the hope of many Midwest landowners; Joyce French of Mt. Summit, Ind. attended last week’s WIndiana conference in Indianapolis to learn more about development plans for the Hoosier State. She and her husband, Dale, own 200 acres and plant corn and soybeans on 1,000.

Their property is one-half mile from an electric substation in rural Henry County.

“(A wind farm is) an up-and-coming interest, and I’m interested in leasing out property if it comes up,” she said.

So far wind farms have been erected in northwestern Indiana, but building them further south could happen. According to an IndianaMap.org collation of state and federal data, some portions of Henry County have wind speeds of up to 20 mph at an elevation of 100 meters – similar to speeds shown in Benton County.

Benton County has been Indiana’s self-professed “guinea pig” for counties looking to pass ordinances regulating wind turbines, according to Bruce Buchanan, a farmer who leases out land for 11 turbines and who was on the county council that enacted the state’s first wind ordinance.

“Nowhere in our talks did anyone have an idea of what (we would end) up with,” he said. “We just knew wind was coming.”

The council looked to Illinois and Iowa, which already had wind farms, for ordinance ideas. “It was more complex than I envisioned it being, but it’s really just day-to-day” figuring out what was important to include, he explained.

Now, Porter County is being courted. In late 2009 the county approved wind energy conversion systems amendments to its development ordinance, based in part on what Benton County did, in response to interest from TradeWind Energy of Kansas to build a wind farm across Porter and LaPorte counties.

One panel at WIndiana dealt with what should be in county wind ordinances and what others thought was too restrictive. Buchanan said, for example, property setbacks are important for turbine placement, to neighboring property owners. Before he had turbines, his opinion of those who complained about the noise of the spinning blades was lower.

“If you’re offended, it’s because you wanted to be offended,” used to be what he thought.

Since having turbines, he understands where the complaint comes from. The second batch of seven erected on his property, he said, are much quieter than the first four. “It makes a difference,” he said, urging potential lessees to keep in mind that “these are mechanical beings sitting 260 feet in the air, making noise.”

Soil compaction is another worry. Putting big turbines up means heavy equipment on one’s property. Buchanan said he regrets giving permission to drive equipment across one fertile corner of his farmland. To this day, he said the drainage has been damaged, and he can no longer plant on that spot.

However, “I can’t tell you that there is a line to which I will not go further” beyond in agreeing to a lease for turbines, he said – because the end goal for a landowner is still to earn an income off the land. Besides lease payments, he has heard land with turbines can fetch as much as $800 more per acre in resale value.

Wind ordinances were pretty simple at their outset, said Phil Seybold, owner of Ecologic Constructions Technologies, which offers consultation on green technology. “It’s a pretty tangled web at this point,” he said, explaining proposed ordinances added more regulations over time.

He believes they will become simpler again once Hoosiers have more experience with wind farms and turbines and know what to include – and what not. For example, he thinks Porter County’s tower height restriction of 35 feet is unnecessary.

“The higher you go, the better resource you have with wind,” Seybold said.

Robert Thompson, director of the Porter County Plan Commission, said that restriction is for properties up to 2.5 acres. He said the reason for the 35 feet is because of the potential for blades causing noise, as well as throwing large pieces of ice a longer distance in the winter.

Something else Seybold questions are liability insurance policies for turbines (which Porter County does not require). A $4 million policy, in his opinion, is a bit much for something no bigger or more dangerous than a tree or light pole. Attorney Timothy Ochs, a partner in Ice Miller LLP of Indianapolis, said while there is some level of risk in having a turbine, county governments don’t generally enforce liability insurance for other private property in ordinances.

He described some insurance and bonding requirements (for the removal of turbines no longer in use) as “rather onerous” but said, “I understand why it’s being done.” Plus, in Indiana zoning is a local, not state, function.

“What’s right (for an ordinance) is whatever the county decides is right,” Ochs said, pointing out people elected by the citizens are making these decisions.

There are times, he explained, when state or federal policies trump local laws to help an industry. His example is a federal regulation that keeps local communities from banning satellite dishes under a certain size, which Ochs said helped the satellite television industry expand.

Farmers who can’t have a commercial turbine might be able to still install a small rooftop (called a micro-wind) or pole-mounted wind turbine, according to Regan Newton, who works in turbine sales for New Holland Rochester, an Indiana farm equipment dealer. They need to be sure, however, it’s a good idea in the long-term.

For one thing, a 10-kilowatt turbine on a 120-foot tower costs about $56,000. For another, the local utility company and ordinances might not work with your plan. Too, there might just not be enough wind to justify it.

Finally, Seybold said, be sure your structure can support a turbine. He told of an apartment complex owner who wanted to install 15 turbines on each building’s roof; his advice was a solid “no.”

“Not every site is good for wind,” he pointed out.