Linly Stum is a proud farmer who has lived in Kiowa County, Colorado, for over 60 years. In a conversation with Linly in December 2023, he shared a few insights into his personal history and his perspective on Invenergy’s plans to develop wind projects in his county.
Tell us a bit about your family.
There were three of us when we came to Colorado: Sherrill and I and our oldest son Layne was a baby at the time. Now there’s around 36 in the clan. For Sherrill and me, it's been about as perfect as it can get.
And what do you love about this community?
That word: community.
I had an accident a number of years ago, and they flew Humpty-Dumpty to Denver to put him back together. I broke all the ribs on one side, punctured a lung and busted my pelvis.
I was in a room in the ICU, it wasn’t real wide, just enough to fit two beds. Along the wall there was about an 18-foot ledge below the window, and after four or five days, there was not a place left on that ledge to set another plant.
My nurse stepped out in the hall and met someone who asked, “Who in the world is that in there?” And my nurse said, well, he says he's a farmer. And then it dawned on me, all of them plants are because of where I live. We were neighbors then and we’re still neighbors now.
That's when I really learned what I call a sense of community and how big of a deal it is. It's pretty special.
How do you feel about bringing wind development into the county?
Farmers and ag in this area are a bit desperate for the infusion of money that comes from new sources of energy.
We’re always going to have wind out here on the flat. And when it comes to the cost of electricity, it makes sense. 20 years ago, when the first turbines were put up in this area south of Lamar, wind power was quite a bit more expensive than coal-generated. But it's not that way anymore. 20 years ago, the push for wind energy was environmental. Today, it's about lowering the cost of electricity.
So how does wind development on your farms factor into your goals of keeping your land in the family?
Well, right now, it's going to keep us alive financially. The price of a bushel of grain isn't cutting it. It's my job to try to keep our heads above water. So, if we got to farm around the towers, then I guess we'll farm around them.
Many farmers have had to sell their land and leave, and I intend to keep our land in our family as a source of income to provide education for our great, great-grandchildren and their kids.
Wind energy is making use of what we have available: wind. Period. It's a resource you have to harvest where it is, because you can't ship wind, but you can ship the electricity it creates.
What do you think about what the towers do to your views?
I actually find the towers and blades like mobile art. It’s very much in the vein of the Saint Louis Arch. That is just an awesome piece of work, and it puts Saint Louis on the map. I don't see how these wind towers and their blades are any different than that.