European Energy Firm Ordered to Remove 84 Wind Turbines from Osage Lands In Oklahoma
Energy Expert Robert Bryce: “It is a colossal black eye for the wind industry, which has collected tens of billions of dollars in federal tax credits by claiming its landscape-blighting, bird-and-bat-killing, property-value-destroying turbines are an essential part of the effort to avert catastrophic climate change.”
Early in 2024, I reported that a federal judge ordered an Italian energy firm had to remove an 84-turbine wind farm in Osage County. This was a big win for the Native American tribe, but there was still some legal details to be worked out with the company, Enel Energy.
The initial ruling from the federal judge in Tulsa did not establish a timeline for the removal or the turbines. Nor did the judge establish the amount of of damages due to the tribe.
Now the firm has been given both a deadline from wind turbine removal and the cost of damages, both of which are likely to knock the wind out of its 2025 fiscal goals.
December 1, 2025. That is the deadline Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves of the U.S. Court of International Trade gave to Enel and its subsidiaries to remove 84 wind turbines west of Pawhuska and return the land to its pre-windfarm state.
She also awarded about $4 million in monetary damages for both conversion, trespass and attorney fees.
“We are thankful that the Court stood up for Indian rights. Our lands and resources have been taken and used by others for more than 150 years,” said the Osage Minerals Council in a statement. “We will always fight to defend our Mineral Estate that our ancestors reserved for our benefit and the benefit of generations to come.
“We are open for business and we look forward to working with anyone who negotiates with us in good faith.”
Enel’s first mistake was ignoring how unhappy the Osage were about plans for the wind farm to begin with. Hot Air’s Beege Welborn noted the utter arrogance of the Green Energy Barons in her report on the initial ruling.
What tripped the wind company up was arrogance. How many times have we seen that before?
The Osage Nation might not have owned all the property, but they did hold title to all the mineral rights under the windfarm and the area required for maintenance roads, etc., ever since buying the land from the Cherokees in the late 1800’s.
As far back as 2011, at the very beginning of the project, the superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs wrote a letter to the company warning them not to violate the tribe’s mineral rights when construction started or during any part of the build-out.
Ignoring that warning, others which came later, and disregarding repeated subsequent orders to acquire a mining lease and stop the mineral violations were to prove Enel’s undoing. And it is going to cost them big time.
Enel stomped all over the Osage mineral rights in its quest to build its wind turbines.
In 2010, Enel leased 8,400 acres of surface rights in Osage County to construct a wind farm, which included 84 wind turbines. The installation required deep excavation, using explosives to create craters over 10 feet deep and 60 feet wide.
During construction, significant amounts of Osage minerals were removed, processed, and repurposed without authorization, leading to allegations of unauthorized mining.
And, as predicted, it is going to cost Enel Energy. The estimated cost for removing the turbines is approximately $300 million, which is a huge hit for the company. Besides the dismantling of the turbines, additional details demonstrate that the judge was not moved by the energy firm’s arguments.
- The judge found the defendants liable for conversion, trespass, and continuing trespass on the Osage Mineral Estate.
- The court awarded $242,652.28 for conversion and $66,780 for trespass.
- The defendants must pay over $36 million in attorney’s fees to the plaintiffs, including the U.S. Department of Justice and the Osage Minerals Council.
Energy expert Robert Bryce notes that this is a historic victory against green energy barons.
For years, Big Wind has played hardball with rural communities. In some cases, Big Wind has sued rural governments to try to force them to accept wind projects they don’t want.
…Across the US, only a handful of turbines have ever been taken down due to local opposition. In 2022, two turbines in Falmouth, Massachusetts, were dismantled after numerous complaints from local homeowners about the noise from the turbines and a years-long legal battle.
But an order to remove 84 wind turbines— by a federal judge, no less— is nothing short of gobsmacking. It is a colossal black eye for the wind industry, which has collected tens of billions of dollars in federal tax credits by claiming its landscape-blighting, bird-and-bat-killing, property-value-destroying turbines are an essential part of the effort to avert catastrophic climate change.
It is also a massive, massive win for Native American tribes and their legal rights.
I suspect that this will be the first of many such victories against green energy barons, who have lorded over this nation using “climate crisis” pseudoscience and political connections. The climate in Washington, DC, has gotten chillier for this nonsense.
Wednesday’s federal court decision is unprecedented. It requires @EnelGroup to remove 84 wind turbines it built in Osage County by December 1, 2025. The decision signals the end of the longest-running legal battle over wind energy in American history. And it’s ending with a… pic.twitter.com/6Cj05iHzB6
— Robert Bryce (@pwrhungry) December 20, 2024
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Comments
Huge win for property rights of landowners!
I’m not a fan (no pun intended) of the wind turbine con artists, but does a ten-foot deep hole really encroach upon “mineral rights”?
It would not in most other states. Even on tribal lands in OK it seems like a judge would only order compensation for lost gravel or sand, or whatever was taken which would be of minimal value. The turbines wouldn’t appear to block ingress or egress to their land. Usually if there is lease violation the tenant is given reasonable opportunity to cure the lease violation.
It depends on what’s in the lease.
It very well could depending on what was going on. In Oklahoma sand is exempted but anything else of value is included whether stone to be crushed or oil to be extracted. I think I have that correct.
“Surface rights typically extend aboveground and can also extend dozens of feet below the surface. Owners can often bury tanks, septic systems, or store heating oil underground without impacting ownership, within the limits of applicable state or municipal laws.”
The turbine developer only went 10ft into the ground, and wasn’t engaged in “mining” of minerals. It was for foundation footings to support the structure above the ground. If that requires special language for mineral rights, then there are going to be lawsuits exploding for anything as deep as a basement, not to mention utilities.
That’s a lot deeper than you imagine. Most of the holes I’ve seen are 15 to 20-foot-deep support all of the 328-foot-high towers with 2-MW turbines and require 30,000 tons of cement.
It’s not the hole it is the mineral that was removed then processed to make concrete, building pads, and roads. Living in west Texas where there are thousands of windmills within 10 miles or so, I’ve seen the thousands of cubic yards of rock from the excavations crushed and reused. Looks like the lease had no provisions for compensating the mineral rights holder.
Hmmm. Considering Brandon signed a Bill on Christmas Eve officially making the Bald Eagle our National Bird I wonder who is going to be the first to sue over those bird Cuisinarts on the west coast?
Now, let’s do the Coachella Valley, Altamonte Pass, Tehachapi…
There are two forms of leases – the surface as well as the mineral rights. The green company repeatedly ignored the Osage requests to go through the motions of acquiring the mining rights lease and they continued building. I think their attitude of “build now and ask forgiveness later” was their downfall. The Osage Tribe felt that their sovereignty was ignored and also refused to back down.
I’m glad that I live in the “unassigned lands” section of Oklahoma.
Good! That’s a start. If they don’t reply, dismantle them. Is there anything we can use to help BUILD THE WALL? The USA would be better off if we got the EU, China, and the UN out of our country and sent them home. It’s time we clean house!!!
At least they have a reclamation order. Usually when the tax credits run out, the “investors” dissolve and disappear, leaving a skyline of rusty, snapped off hulks that never did lower anyones light bill.
I guess I don’t understand the basis of the complaint. Yes, excavations were blasted and dug… but as long as none of the material was removed from the owner’s property, all of the minerals there are still his. Now, if the company converted any of that material into their own property that would be a violation. But even if they used it to build structures on their leasehold, as long as the lease has a termination date, all that material would devolve back to the owners. If the company tried to remove it at the termination of their lease, THEN the mineral rights violation would occur,
They used the materials from the blasted craters to make concrete and to build roads. That’s the conversion element.
I sold some property I inherited in HI that was located in one of the areas that wasn’t built on leasehold property. Got a very good price b/c it wasn’t leasehold. The neighboring property had a big resort, multi story condos, common areas of parking lots, swimming pools, hot tubs, tennis courts….but they are less than five years from expiration of leasehold. The land owners want a far different contract for renewal than their antecedents negotiated. The lease holders either gotta pay up or will be required by the terms to tear out all the improvements and return the leasehold to its prior natural state.
Oklahoma is very serious about the preservation of ownership and transfer of mineral rights. I just recently transferred some from my mother to me, requiring several documents and affidavits.
I see an appeal coming and a search for Obama appointed judges.
They’ll be hard put to find one in Oklahoma. I don’t think they even have a blue county.
The Osage in particular have been very picky with mineral rights even to the point of stopping builders from pulling up surface rock to build homes with. So the Osage are not holding the wind farm to a different standard than they have held everyone else.
Mineral rights lease isn’t necessary to install telephone poles, fence posts, other infrastructure affixed to the surface. But again it depends on the language in the lease, which I’m assuming nobody here has reviewed. This looks like the tribal entity realized after they signed the lease, that they learned that other surface rights owners elsewhere got paid more, and they got paid more they wouldn’t object.
I guess they never watched Killers of the Flower Moon.
“…the plaintiffs, including the U.S. Department of Justice…”
So the Biden DoJ helped sue the wind farm? That’s a surprise. And the litigation started over 12 years ago, so the Obama DoJ joined at the start? Another surprise.