How school districts can benefit from Wind Farms

ARCHER CITY, Tx (RNN Texoma) - An update to a story we first brought to you on Sunday.

A group that's against wind farms plans on talking to Bellevue ISD school board members Tuesday night to inform them of the potential negative effects.

Bellevue ISD is also scheduled to hear from consultants on chapter 313 of the Texas Tax Code, and a wind farm company.

This is a project Archer City ISD is familiar with. C.D Knobloch, the Archer City ISD superintendent said they currently have two wind farms.

Knobloch says agreements that were signed in 2011 and 2012 have helped the district in different ways.

"If we didn't have the wind farms we probably would not have built a new high school," Knobloch said. "When they came in we had a building that was 92 years old and we looked at it and thought well with this wind farm value it's going to be here for a few years and it would be a great time to act and take advantage of those values to help pay for that facility."

He adds their students are also granted scholarships thanks to an agreement between the county government and the wind farm company.

"This is a ten year plan, {and} we've been in about three or four years so we have a few years to go but money goes to the Wichita Falls Area Community Foundation and then our students who attend college and have been students here for two years now or more they get to take two thousand dollars with them to go help pay that bill," Knobloch said.

Matt Carter, the president of Carter Wind Energy, an advanced wind turbine technology company in Wichita Falls said projects like these will benefit more than just the single landowner.

"There is a long-term tax base of revenue that is going to be generated from these investments," Carter said. "So that not only benefits the County and all community members in the County, but also the school districts."

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