Wind Turbines: A Big Part of Big Stone County’s Future
By Brent Olson, Little Rock Wind, LLC founder and Big Stone County Comissioner
I’m a grandfather now, and that changes everything. What does that have to do with wind turbines? Well, let me explain. A few years ago I looked around and saw that I had three kids with college degrees and no school loans. I had enough life insurance so that my wife was clearly better off with me dead than alive. I didn’t owe money and all in all, I was pretty relaxed, ready to kick back and coast to the finish line. My work here was done and I was fairly close to just taking up space. I barely read the newspaper, because all of the troubles coming down the road didn’t feel like they were my problem.
But then I became a grandfather and that all blew away like an autumn wind. I’m not relaxed anymore, and I’m really worried about the future. And that’s what it has to do with wind turbines. Among other things, wind turbines require land and for better or worse, most of the land is owned by older folks and some of them may not see what is the sense of going to the bother of signing up for something that they don’t need and won’t really benefit from much, at least in the short term.
But the thing we need to remember is that we build a foundation in the present for our children and grandchildren to inhabit in the future. I remember when I first started thinking about what could be done here in Big Stone County to make this a place more hospitable for dreams. It was when I realized that with three adult children, there really wasn’t a career here that any of them would be interested in. There were fewer and fewer businesses and the farms were getting larger and larger.
How could I promote this area as a place to live when I couldn’t in good conscience encourage my children to make this their home? But now only a few years later ethanol plants, wind turbines, biomass plants, have all helped change the landscape, helped to make this a place where a variety of dreams can now seem viable, a place where our children and grandchildren can make a home, and a living.
So, when someone stops by to talk about signing up your land for a wind farm easement the
first thought might be, “What’s in it for me?” But that’s not the point, is it?