Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Turbines will depreciate over time
DAVENPORT — One of the chief promises of the companies looking to build wind turbine projects in Lincoln County is the expected increase in property tax revenue for the county current expense and road budget.
Studies show that assessed valuations from wind turbine projects around Washington indeed increase the budgets of the counties projects are developed in. However, the wind turbines are considered personal property, which can depreciate over time.
And that could lead to tax burdens being shifted to surrounding taxpayers in a taxing district the turbines are constructed in, and on a smaller level, county taxpayers on a whole, a study from the Washington State Association of Counties (WSAC) found.
The study, published Feb. 15, found that when constructed, clean energy projects adds to overall property value within a county. Because the projects are considered new construction, the 1% levy lid doesn’t apply, and increased valuations could theoretically increase an unlimited amount.
That was the case in Garfield County, where the Lower Snake Wind Farm constructed about 12 years ago greatly increased the county’s overall assessed value.
“In 2011, the county current expense total tax collection was $289,053. In 2012, when the turbines were partially built, it was $396,921,” Garfield County assessor Brian Bartels said. “By 2013, when they were almost done, it was $551,205.”
Currently, Bartels said, the county current expense tax collection is at $855,275. And the Lower Snake Wind Farm generates about 45% of the tax base, he added.
But the WSAC study also found that as wind turbines depreciate, the taxable value of the clean energy project reduces. And that could shift tax burdens to taxpayers in those taxing districts.
“For local taxing districts to continue to provide a consistent level of service as clean energy tax revenue tax declines, counties must look to other property owners in those tax districts to make up that shortfall,” the study states on Page 11. “Personal property depreciation may results in a shift of the property tax burden the project created and was responsible for paying to other properties within the taxing district.”
Commissioner Rob Coffman and Lincoln County Assessor J Scott Liebing both said the WSAC findings are accurate.
“I don’t see anything in there that’s not 100% correct,” Liebing said.
“That owner is paying that new construction on personal property,” Coffman added. “As (value) decreases, they pay less on personal property.”
But the impact of depreciation depends largely on how quickly each turbine, which is assessed individually, is constructed, Liebing said.
If the windmills are installed within a few years of each other, depreciation will be felt more drastically as the turbines all decrease in value at the same time. If construction is more spread out, the revenues of new construction will ease the negative impacts of depreciation shifts to neighboring taxpayers, Liebing said.
And, Coffman added, the burden on the individual taxpayer will depend on how many turbines are built in shared tax districts. That becomes complicated with the numerous types of taxing districts property owners pay into.
Taxing districts include a variety of sources property taxes help fund, including school districts, hospital districts and fire districts. Additionally, taxes help fund the county current expense and road budgets.
Bartels said Garfield County’s depreciation schedule has ebbed and flowed because the wind turbine project is assessed by the state. Additionally, Columbia County Assessor Tammy Ketterman confirmed the county has seen depreciation from local wind turbines.
Columbia County has a total of 469 towers split between three turbine project owners.
According to Columbia County Treasurer’s Office documents, wind project owners began to pay property taxes there in 2007. That year, wind energy taxes generated $807,310.14, or 17.9% of the county’s total tax base, which was about $4.5 million.
Those taxes increased year by year, peaking at over $5.3 million in 2018, which was 48.4% of the tax base.
But since then, as depreciation has occurred, that tax number has dropped to about $2.6 million, or 23.5% of the tax base, but the total taxes billed in 2024 remained at just under $11.3 million.
In Kittitas County, property tax payments on the Vantage Wind Farm were $972,364 in 2014 and $468,480 in 2023. That’s a 52% reduction that’s shifted to other property taxpayers in the taxing district, the WSAC study found.
Because the currently developing projects in Lincoln County don’t cross county lines, the projects will be assessed locally, Liebing said.
And other new, non-turbine-related construction projects over the next 35 years also affect tax assessments, he noted. The true tax burden and figures remain largely unknown.
“We truly won’t know (until they go up),” Liebing said.
Triple Oak Power officials recently said the company is still evaluating property tax impacts for themselves, but promised a positive impact on county revenues.
Tenaska/Cordelio P.R. staff said the company has a “robust team of experts” that studies tax impacts, but didn’t return questions by press time. At community meetings in Lincoln County, the company promised an average of $4 million to $6 million in tax revenue annually as turbines are constructed.
Clarifying Triple Oak Power meeting
DAVENPORT–Portland-based Triple Oak Power, one of the companies working on a wind turbine project in Lincoln County, has a scheduled meeting at Memorial Hall at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 20.
Triple Oak Power CEO Jesse Gronner said the meeting will be light on details and is intended to be a check-in with landowners who have signed leases. He said no one will be turned away at the door, but doesn’t want the public to assume many questions will be answered.
Gronner said a public meeting to answer more questions in detail is being worked on, currently.
According to Auditor’s Office records, the company LLC, Great Bend Wind, has signed 19 memorandum leases with Lincoln County landowners. Cordelio, the other company partnering with Tenaska looking to build two wind turbine projects here, had signed five lease agreements by press time.
Drew Lawson is the editor of the Davenport Times. He is a graduate of Eastern Washington University.
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