PRESS ROOM
News Item
Winds of Change are Blowing in Northwest Missouri
The Bluegrass Ridge farm is the first commercial wind project to open in Missouri.
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
09/23/2007
The "Big Pump" was always this town's main roadside attraction, perhaps rivaling only Branson's giant ball of twine or Independence's hair museum.
Built in 1937 by a gas station owner named Rufus Limpp, the 25-foot tall, fire-truck-red replica of an electric gasoline pump once beckoned motorists to "Buy Gas Now." It now sits in front of the King City museum.
From the wooden steps of the museum, tourists now can get a good view of the town's newest attraction: 27 wind turbines rising about 300 feet from the ground, their blades, about the length of a football field, pushed into motion by a steady breeze.
The Bluegrass Ridge farm is the first commercial wind project to open in Missouri. The wind farm could produce about 57 megawatt hours of energy — enough electricity to power 34,000 homes.
Missouri joins about 32 other states, including Illinois, in developing wind energy, a source of renewable energy that doesn't produce air pollution that contributes to global warming. A recent Supreme Court ruling found that carbon dioxide is a pollutant and can be regulated. Consequently, utilities across the nation are expected to step up efforts to buy wind energy and other forms of renewable energy to offset pollution created by coal-fired power plants.
In King City, wind power is also funneling tourists and tax dollars to the farming community in northwest Missouri where the economy has historically ebbed and flowed with the cost of corn and cattle.
The company behind the King City wind farm is St. Louis-based Wind Capital Group, which plans to open two more wind farms in neighboring Atchison and Nodaway counties early next year. Wind Capital is targeting that area because it's the only place in the state that has enough wind to run the 25-ton turbines.
The 9,000-acre Bluegrass Ridge farm is slated to pay more than $500,000 in property taxes next year to Gentry County, the largest share of which will go to the King City school district.
The town is also benefitting from an influx of curious visitors who are stopping to gawk at the gargantuan turbines rising out of cornfields and cow pastures.
Last week, a dedication ceremony drew more than 500 people — a little less than half of King City's population. There are even plans to build a visitors center not far from the Big Pump, a symbol of the town's energy past that is being replaced with one that represents a new future in energy.
"It's just breathed new life into this town," said John McKinnon, a local farmer. "It used to be people didn't know where King City was on the map, but now they associate it with the wind farm."
Missouri joins about 32 other states, including Illinois, in developing wind energy, a source of renewable energy that doesn't produce air pollution that contributes to global warming. A recent Supreme Court ruling found that carbon dioxide is a pollutant and can be regulated. Consequently, utilities across the nation are expected to step up efforts to buy wind energy and other forms of renewable energy to offset pollution created by coal-fired power plants.
In King City, wind power is also funneling tourists and tax dollars to the farming community in northwest Missouri where the economy has historically ebbed and flowed with the cost of corn and cattle.
The company behind the King City wind farm is St. Louis-based Wind Capital Group, which plans to open two more wind farms in neighboring Atchison and Nodaway counties early next year. Wind Capital is targeting that area because it's the only place in the state that has enough wind to run the 25-ton turbines.
The 9,000-acre Bluegrass Ridge farm is slated to pay more than $500,000 in property taxes next year to Gentry County, the largest share of which will go to the King City school district.
The town is also benefitting from an influx of curious visitors who are stopping to gawk at the gargantuan turbines rising out of cornfields and cow pastures.
Last week, a dedication ceremony drew more than 500 people — a little less than half of King City's population. There are even plans to build a visitors center not far from the Big Pump, a symbol of the town's energy past that is being replaced with one that represents a new future in energy.
"It's just breathed new life into this town," said John McKinnon, a local farmer. "It used to be people didn't know where King City was on the map, but now they associate it with the wind farm."
Libby Klitsch, lklitsch@3degreesinc.com