Towers: A Growing Obstacle for Ag Aviation

Taken from July/August 2005 Agricultural Aviation Magazine

During the past decade, 7% of all agricultural aviation fatal accidents were caused by collisions with towers. Every collision with a tower during this reporting period resulted in a fatality. The most recent fatality was this past May in the Texas Panhandle. In addition to being more aware of off-target movement of applied materials and urban encroachment, the modern aerial applicator must also be on the lookout for towers that are constantly sprouting into existence on arable land. The past decade has seen an increasing number of towers constructed as a result of an escalating demand for mobile phones and digital television networks.

There are more than 85,000 communication towers in the U.S and they are being constructed at a rate of about 7,000 each year. But expected to grow at an even greater rate are towers to be constructed to generate wind-powered energy. By the end of this year wind is expected to generate enough electricity to supply just shy of one percent of the country’s needs. This percentage has doubled since 1999 and, according to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), could provide 20 percent of the electricity in some areas of the country by 2010. That poses a real concern to the aerial application industry, not just in terms of safety, but also in terms of accessing farmer’s fields to treat their crops, since many prime wind-energy development areas are located in rural, agriculturally rich areas.

Why Wind is in
There are many economic variables of why wind-generated power is attractive today. One reason is that the price of other fuel sources, such as natural gas and oil, are increasing to the level where wind-powered energy can compete. The cost of wind generated electricity, on the other hand has dropped by about two-thirds since the mid-1980’s as a result of more efficient turbines and better access to the power grid. Furthermore, the federal government has enacted a production tax credit that has breathed a fresh breath of air into the wind-power industry. This amounts to a 1.8 cent per kilowatt-hour tax credit for wind-generators. This tax credit expires this year; however, Congress is currently considering an all-encompassing piece of energy legislation that would reauthorize the wind-power tax credit for another ten years. According to wind energy representatives, without this tax credit, wind energy could not compete.

Another factor driving the demand for wind-energy is that eighteen states, including the District of Columbia, have established what are known as renewable portfolio standards (RPS), which require utilities to supply minimum amounts of electricity from green sources such as wind and sunlight. For example, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich is proposing an RPS for the state that mandates 6% of all energy generated in the state come from wind.

All these factors are resulting in wind-energy becoming a multibillion-dollar business dominated by some major global corporations. For example, General Electric makes high tech wind energy turbines, as does Siemens AG—the $91.3 billion German industrial conglomerate. Even John Deere is involved. It has a subsidiary that finances the development of wind energy towers and maintains the wind energy turbines.

Wind and Agriculture
With the demand for wind-energy, towers—equipped with the rotating turbines that generate the electricity—are sprouting up throughout the country. Many locations that look promising for harnessing the wind for power are in prime agricultural areas. These areas, as outlined by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), include eastern Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, north-central Nebraska, western and southern Minnesota, western Michigan, west-central Illinois, western and northern Iowa, south Kansas and the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles (click on this link to see the map - http://www.nrel.gov/wind/images/wherewind800.jpg).

The DOE estimates that wind energy over the next 20 years will create $60 billion in capital investment in rural America, provide $1.2 billion in new income for farmers and rural landowners and create 80,000 new jobs. This is attractive to farmers because they can lease out their land to wind-energy companies where the towers are placed and receive between $2,000-3,500 a year while still being able to farm between the towers. Because this will help out a struggling farm economy, both the American Farm Bureau Federation and the American Corn Growers Association are supportive of wind energy and of the 1.8 cent per kilowatt-hour tax-credit associated with it.

Towers and Aerial Application
The obvious concerns that the aerial application industry has with towers being constructed in rural areas is related to safety. One fatal accident in the industry is one too many and in the past decade there have been 7 fatal accidents involving collisions with towers—31 when considering collisions with both towers and wires. With an expected boom in wind-energy tower construction in rural areas, aerial applicators will be even more at risk. Also, there is the concern that with wind-energy towers peppered across America’s ag land, it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to access a farmer’s land by plane to treat it.

According to the AWEA, new wind-energy towers that are being constructed today are close to 300 feet in height. The good news for aerial applicators is that at this height they fall into Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) rules requiring them to be lit. Also, new wind-energy towers constructed today are freestanding with no guy wires. Guy wires are difficult for aerial applicators to see and can sheer off an ag plane’s wing. The towers, when equipped with their tri-blades in place on the rotor, are roughly the same width as the wingspan of a Boeing 747 aircraft. The spacing of the towers is two to three rotor diameters apart, or a few thousand feet. According to Sam Enfield, with PPM Atlantic Renewable and president of the AWEA, typically wind-energy towers are placed on ridges where there is more air movement. Wind-energy towers must be placed near transmission lines, otherwise they are not profitable. There is no single pattern relative to the formation of a cluster of wind towers. Logic dictates that the best layout of a cluster of wind towers for an aerial applicator, other than the towers not existing, is that they be placed in a linear fashion. Areas with a larger cluster of wind towers are determined based on a variety of factors, such as, proximity to roads so that they can be serviced easily; acceptability of the location by the landowner; and sufficient air movement to move the turbines and generate the electricity.

One way a potential wind-energy tower location is analyzed to determine if air movement is sufficient is to erect a meteorological testing tower. These are the testing towers that can also jeopardize the safety of aerial applicators. These towers have much smaller rotors making them less visible. Furthermore, these towers use guy wires to anchor them in place which ag pilots have a hard time seeing. Meteorological testing towers are also typically below 200 feet in height and thereby exempted from lighting requirements if not near a public airport. The good news is they are not permanent; they stay in place for a few seasons to generate an appropriate amount of data to determine whether a site is suitable for the larger wind-energy towers. The bad news is that they go up quickly and as just mentioned, can be difficult to see. Moreover some counties don’t require permits for towers that are not erected on cement and some meteorological testing towers are not erected on cement.

NAAA and Regional AAA Action Pertaining to Tower Construction
NAAA has been actively pursuing ways to ensure that tower construction does not jeopardize the safety of aerial applicators, nor make prime agricultural land inaccessible to aerial application. The Association has met with congressional offices to garner support for national legislation to make the 1.8-cent per kilowatt-hour tax credit for wind-generators conditional upon not developing them on prime ag land. This approach has not been met with much support as a result of a diversified and powerful coalition of wind-energy advocates consisting of the American Wind Energy Association, corporate interests (John Deere, GE, Siemens AG), some environmental groups and the American Farm Bureau Federation. In general the federal government has limited jurisdiction over where towers, generators or transmission wires are placed, unless it is over federal land or public airports. States and local governments are the primary entities that determine the location, or zoning of towers, generators and transmission lines.

There have been moderately successful efforts at the state level to address rampant tower construction to protect aerial applicators. The Wisconsin Agricultural Aviation Association adopted a document that it intends to share with Wisconsin farmers that states farms with towers on its land will not be treated via aerial application.

In 2003, the Texas Agricultural Aviation Association (TAAA) worked diligently to pass state legislation requiring an entity proposing to build a communication tower above 100 feet to contact the TAAA and that such towers with guy wires be marked if in or within 100 feet of a cultivated field.

Last year the Louisiana Agricultural Aviation Association was successful in enacting legislation that would require a person to construct a communication facility between 100 and 200 feet to notify the Association at least 30 days before beginning construction.

A secondary approach NAAA has taken on this issue is to ask for the wind-energy advocates to educate their constituencies about potential liability issues and possible repercussions to agriculture if wind-energy towers prevent crop protection application services from accessing farmland. To date, this approach has been met with some success. In recent communications between NAAA and the American Farm Bureau Federation, the Farm Bureau expressed how the spreading of towers could be a real problem to their farmer constituency and indicated a realization that the costs of a farmer’s crop not being treated could far exceed the revenues a farmer would receive from leasing his land for the placement of a wind-energy tower. The Farm Bureau has indicated that they will work with NAAA on an educational campaign to inform farmers about the repercussions tower construction may have in aerially treating their crops.

NAAA has also met with the AWEA, which expressed its intent on working with the aerial application industry on the safety issues related to wind energy development in rural areas.

At the end of this article, are tower safety guidelines NAAA has developed for entities thinking about erecting wind-energy towers in agricultural areas to follow, such as informing aerial applicators before going ahead with construction, constructing the towers without guy wires, and ensuring that towers are constructed in a linear pattern, not a disordered pattern that would make an area completely inaccessible by air.

Future steps the NAAA plans to take on the wind-energy issue includes working with the U.S. Department of Energy and prompt the Agency to update its brochures that promote the development of wind-energy in rural areas to include language that informs rural inhabitants of the safety and access concerns wind towers pose to aerial application. Similarly, NAAA is meeting with organizations interested in promoting rural wind energy to ensure that they do the same.

Local Involvement on Towers
Former Speaker of the House of Representatives Tip O’Neil once said “all politics are local.” This is certainly the case when it comes to fighting the placement of towers in prime agricultural land, especially since in most cases it is either the state or local governments that determine if a tower will be placed. Last year Barb Steier, a Faribault County Commissioner in Minnesota and wife of Tim Steier an aerial applicator in that state, wrote an article in this magazine (see July/August 2004 issue) about the zoning process for towers. She made a sound suggestion to the aerial application community on how to curb the construction of towers by suggesting to “get active in your county planning and zoning. Read through your county’s tower ordinance and get active in the permit applications and hearings. You are a taxpayer and deserve to be heard.” This process helped the Steier’s in converting a planned 250-foot guy wire cell phone tower with no markings into a 185 foot galvanized monopole with lights. The squeaky wheel got the grease. Another good idea is to meet with your farmers now and share with them the aerial application industry’s concerns with towers so that they will think long and hard about building one on their land.

Another famous quote to keep in mind when taking on towers, is one adapted from Shakespeare’s play The Tempest—“politics make strange bedfellows.” NAAA is not the only special interest group that has a real concern with rampant tower construction. Other interested groups include wildlife groups, fisherman and certain homeowner groups that don’t want their pristine vistas distorted. In May, the American Bird Conservancy filed suit in federal court against the Federal Communications Commission for violating the Endangered Species Act by not requiring mitigation techniques to avoid bird deaths with licensing communications towers. A major cause of fatalities for migrating birds every year is collisions with towers. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that at least 5 million birds and possibly as many as 50 million birds are killed annually in collisions with communications towers in the U.S. Fifty-two of these 230 species killed are endangered or in decline. In Cape Cod, Massachusetts groups are fighting what they call visual pollution from 130 wind-energy towers, each taller than the Statue of Liberty, sought for Nantucket Sound. Furthermore, fishermen in the area fear loss of prime fishing grounds from the proposed offshore project.

It might be a worthwhile effort to coalesce with these other special interests groups to oppose or restrict rampant tower construction. This could result in one of those situations where the end justifies the means, but when you are talking about ag pilots lives it certainly is worth it.

NAAA Tower Safety Guidelines
- Petitions for constructing towers should be provided to the local government zoning authority and the state or regional agricultural aviation association no later than 30 days before tower construction permits are considered for approval.

- Towers should not be erected on prime agricultural land or inhibit aerial applicators’ access to prime agricultural land.

- If a proposed tower is to be constructed on prime agricultural land or in the vicinity of such land in such a way that may inhibit an aerial applicator’s access, person(s) that own and/or farm such land should be made aware by the entity responsible for that tower that the proposed tower may result in the land no longer being accessible to aerial applicators and in the event of a pest outbreak or plant disease, a crop on such land may be put in jeopardy of not being treated. Landowners and or farmers within at least a one-half mile radius of a proposed tower should be notified by the sponsoring entity of the tower.

- In the event that a proposed tower is constructed on prime agricultural land or in the vicinity of such land, towers should be freestanding without guy wires. Furthermore, towers should be lit and well marked so they are clearly visible to aerial applicators.

- In the event that a number of proposed towers are to be constructed on prime agricultural land or in the vicinity of such land, the towers should be constructed in a linear pattern, not a disordered, clustered pattern that would make an area completely inaccessible by air.

- Towers erected with guy wires should be marked with two visible warning spheres on each guy wire, highly visible sleeves on the lower end of the cables that extend at least 8 feet above the height of the highest crop that may be grown there, and properly lit.