Towering 308 feet high with 187-foot blades, it is hard not to notice the 27 wind turbines climbing up the ridge of the Abajo Mountains just outside Monticello in southeast Utah. Decades in the making, the Latigo Wind Project was purchased by Sustainable Power Group (sPower) last summer and completed in December. With the help of over 100 temporary workers to construct it, the project went fully operational in March and currently employs 10 full-time staff.
The project has met mixed reviews from residents, but most recognize the potential benefits of wind energy at a time of depressed oil and gas prices and the collapse of uranium and coal. The wind farm has produced 30 million kilowatt-hours of electricity since March (enough to power 2,000-4,000 homes) and $1 million a year in taxes to fund the local schools, city and county.
Though the Latigo Project was constructed on a number of privately owned lots, because of the vast amount of public land in the four corners and much of the rural west, there is a movement afoot co-sponsored by Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, to pass the Public Lands Renewable Energy Development Act also supported by U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Cortez, and Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Denver.
This legislation, now several years old, has enjoyed bipartisan support from its inception that includes 36 Democrats and 37 Republicans, the Western Governors Association, Club 20, Colorado Counties, Southwest Council of Governments and others. It would require renewable energy resource developers to pay royalties from energy production on renewable energy projects on federal lands in the same way gas and oil developers do currently.
It establishes a pilot leasing program for wind and solar energy development on public lands and deviates from the traditional royalty formula in important ways. It establishes a new formula that directs 35 percent of royalty revenue to a mitigation fund to offset impacts to fish and wildlife habitat; 25 percent each to the state and the county in which the development occurs; and 15 percent to the managing agency.
We urge the entire Colorado delegation to support and Congress to pass this act this legislative session. In conjunction with the Bureau of Land Management’s forthcoming wind and solar leasing rule that would create a competitive system for wind and solar energy development on appropriate federal lands, it is an important step towards creating clean energy and economic opportunity for the rural West.
