Rotarian Bryan Slaba called the meeting to order on December 3rd at the Rotary Building on the corner of 2nd and Main Street in Wagner. He called upon Pastor Laurie Kidd to offer up a prayer for the club. Pastor Laurie asked that all Rotarians keep Patty and Bill Frei in their prayers as Patty’s father had passed away earlier in the morning. Laurie asked that in the season of Advent the world needs love more now than ever and sharing our love with everyone is so important.

Rotarian Laurie then moved over to the piano and asked that we use our new Christmas Caroling books and the club sang O Come, O Come, Emmanuel. Our Rotarian Song was Sing Rotarians!

There were only two WCS Seniors present for the meeting and they were Kayli Kocer, daughter of Don and Jody Kocer; and Maesa Dvorak, daughter of Jennie and Boyd Dvorak.

Football winners were Laura Wright sold by herself, and Pam Nordquist sold by Gerrit Juffer. Checks will be distributed next week. Amanda Bechen drew the lucky ticket but wasn’t so lucky at finding the Queen of Hearts. She drew a 9 of diamonds and won herself a lottery ticket as a consolation prize.

A thank you card was received and read by Rotarian Bryan from Rachel Woods thanking the Rotary for choosing her as the Citizen of the Year award. You are so welcome, Rachel!

Rotarian Jerry Weber was the Program Chairman and he introduced the club to Scott Creech who is the Construction Manager for the Prevailing Winds tower construction east of Wagner. He works for S Power, who is the leading supplier of solar energy and who recently began to get involved in wind power and owns the Prevailing Winds project. PW consists of 57 towers. S Power also has two other projects, one in Wyoming and one in Utah. Scott has been in the wind tower construction business for 15 years and stated that this is the largest wind project he has worked on in his 15 years. He and his wife live in Avon and enjoy being a part of the community.

Prevailing Winds towers are 50 per cent taller than the other towers close to them. It is 50 per cent bigger in production compared to the other 17 in Charles Mix County. The land for the towers is leased from landowners for 30 years with two 5-year extension options.

They have been fortunate with the project in that they have only had two falls by individuals. Neither were very serious and he feels very fortunate for how smoothly the project is going. The weather has been a big factor in construction with the constant rain and the high winds at times. Earlier delays were caused when two of the most important components for the turbines were not available when they were supposed to be delivered and that gave them a two-month delay.

They have four very large cranes which are 400 feet tall, and easily seen from a distance, working all the time. One of the cranes had a fall and fortunately no one was hurt except the crane. These cranes can set the cell and the large hub and smaller cranes are used to put the blades on. They always have six or seven cranes working. Regardless of whether they are large or small, the cranes are difficult to put up and take down and moving them is critical. Conditions must be just right.

The turbines have a life expectancy of thirty years. The Public Utilities Commission requires all wind projects to have a reclamation plan within the project before it is approved. There is a fund established to dispose of them and four feet below the surface anything else is also removable. The propeller blades would be cut up into smaller pieces and most likely entered a landfill.

Creech was asked about security on the job sites. General Electric has been hired for maintenance and repairs. There are 1 to 7 employees visiting crews all the time for an inspection and there are annual maintenance issues to be addressed. They have not experienced any issues with protesting or vandalism.

The small little town that appears on the eastern horizon as you travel east on Highway 46 is just that. There are 250 people coming to work every morning. There are 8 contractors for specialized jobs and each one of those has a job trailer on site.

Subsidies for wind projects was discussed. Creech stated that several years ago the wind industry made a deal with the government so that within five years there would be no subsidies for projects, and they would be a stand-alone industry.

Questions about obtaining supplies for the project were addressed. There are units coming from all over. If you have seen turbines and propellers being brought in on large trucks some of these parts are manufactured in South Dakota and Nebraska. There were 750 cubic yards of concrete used and 600 tons of steel. Cells were manufactured in Florida and the generators and gear boxes were also made in Florida. The blades were manufactured in Italy and consist mostly of fiberglass and bamboo.

Scott was asked what he thought were some of the biggest changes he has noticed in his last 15 years. He said “everything has gotten bigger and better. Construction is better, the materials are better, there is more competition in bidding; and most important safety has improved. Fifteen years ago, wind turbines were the most dangerous industry to work at. They don’t keep employees who are careless or who take chances anymore. One of the better things is that he has seen free enterprise growing since the subsidies have been eliminated. They have been able to improve local economies by purchasing directly from hometown businesses in Wagner and other local communities.”

Going forward Creech says that we will start to see more improvements in battery storage. It used to be that if the wind didn’t blow, the turbines were turned off. Now the capacity to store power in large batteries is slowly becoming a new industry. He predicts that in the future we will see trucks moving battery storage to different wind power locations just like other commodities are transported over the highways. When he was asked who gets the electricity, he replied that they transport it over the lines from a substation to the Utica substation who then sells it Basin Electric and it is then distributed by Basin to other electric cooperatives etc.

This was a very interesting program and the Rotary Club enjoyed hearing the information and asking questions. Mr. Creech was very forthcoming about the project.

The club adjourned in its usual fashion by singing America.

Sergeant at Arms Becky Brunsing was back at her job with some jesting from Bryan Slaba which almost got him into fine trouble. It was recommended that Dave Isebrands and Ken Cotton both be fined for not giving advance notice of no Membership Minute.

• $1 to Jerry Weber for wearing his “church shoes”.

• $2 each to Jordan Weber and Jamie Soukup for getting together again at the same table.

• $1 to Gerrit Juffer for sitting in a different place again.

• $2 to Amanda Bechen for giving the ok to the Sergeant at Arms to wear eye makeup again after her eye surgery.

• $2 to Francis Doom for almost forgetting that Fr. Jim Fredrich was his guest for the day.

• Bryan Slaba paid $6 Happy Fine for his daughter coming home for Europe for a visit.