Austin Brown II hasn’t lived his entire life on the family ranch.

“Not yet,” he said. “Seventy-six years so far.”

Brown is proud of the Brown Ranch Group, LLC. His grandfather, Austin Brown I, bought a ranch north of Beeville, about 85 miles southeast of San Antonio, in 1924. The Brown, Beasley & Associates, Inc. ranch mortgage loan company, which was co-owned by Austin I’s son, Edwin, was formed in the 1940s. 

Mark Uhr | Rockport Properties

The Brown Ranch Group, LLC was formed a few years ago. Its ranches breed, raise, feed and sell hundreds of calves, heifers and bulls.

They have planted deep roots in one of the most beautiful spots in Texas, with majestic oak trees and sweeping vistas.

People retire in Beeville, content to enjoy a pleasant life in the southeast corner of the Lone Star State. But Brown said a proposal for a massive wind farm in the area would spoil the view, reduce property values and drain money from the county’s coffers.

That’s why he and others are opposed to a tax abatement for a wind power project in the northern part of the county, which he said has become primarily a residential and retirement area.

Ørsted, a Danish wind power company operating through its affiliate Lincoln Clean Energy, which it purchased in 2018, wants to install 60 wind turbines to produce 252 megawatts of power, investing $295 million in the project.

It would also build access roads, an overhead transmission line, an operations and maintenance building as well as other equipment and facilities. Work was scheduled to start in early 2021 and be completed in 2022.

Ørsted has sought tax abatement from local governments, first requesting a 54 percent reduction from Bee County over 10 years, claiming the wind farm will bring more than $21 million in economic activity to the county. That would be a savings of $3.8 million.

That proposal, met with strong opposition from local citizens, was rejected.

Ørsted has asked the Pawnee Independent School District for a tax abatement, setting the project’s assessed valuation at $20 million over the initial 10 years. That proposal remains on the table, and Brown hopes the school board does not approve it.

Brown, also a certified ranch real estate appraiser, said having the wind turbines, which would be 400 to 600 feet high, would cause irreparable damage. While the wind company promises to pay landowners a lot of money and contribute to the tax base, he said it will instead end up costing both residents and the county a fortune.

“It’s absolutely dreadful,” he said. “These people are trying to come in and ruin our county.”

Brown said the Bee County Commission has rejected the tax abatement plan, but Ørsted has turned to the Pawnee Independent School District to see if they would grant it.

“And I don’t think they will,” he said. “It needs to be settled in court or through statute.”

Brown said he is opposed to projects like this from companies based in “all of those socialist countries over there” and wishes others in the area saw it his way. But that is not the case.

“And stupid people are allowing it to happen to their county because they don’t know any better,” he said. 

Mark Uhr, a Rockport real estate broker and Bee County land owner, is also opposed to the project, to be built by Tindol Construction, an area firm specializing in wind and solar power jobs.

Uhr, 66, was glad the county rejected the tax abatement and hopes the school district will as well.

“I have several objections,” he told Texas Business Coalition.

Uhr owns a ranch next to Brown and is a developer who builds homes, ranches, commercial and retail properties. He said this project would dramatically lower land values.

Wind farming is a huge business in Texas, American's top-producing wind state, trailing only five entire nations in production.

Uhr said he doesn’t oppose wind projects in isolated areas, but the northern part of Bee County has seen a great deal of residential development. People spend up to $4,000 per acre, investing in the beauty and ease of rural life.

They could lose half the value of their property, he said — “and that’s a chunk of money.”

An Oasis County wind farm has hundreds of red lights atop towers blinking night and day, he said. While the developers have pledged not to install such lights, he doesn’t trust them, and says residents would be irritated by such displays.

“They don’t want to see that stuff,” Uhr said. “Nobody wants to see those ugly things. We don’t want to see them. And once they’re there, they’re there.”

He points to other concerns.

“We are in a tremendous birding area,” Uhr said. “I know birds don’t understand that stuff, and it kills a lot of wildlife.”

His father was a mechanical engineer and he grew up around that business. Uhr said he doubts the amount of power Ørsted has predicted can be produced with the equipment it plans to install.

“Over a 20-year span, they can’t pay for themselves,” he said. “It all sounds great at the beginning, and with oil prices sliding. It all sounds like a great deal to get money to the school district.”

But, Uhr said, it would turn sour and be a poor decision.

According to its website, Ørsted envisions “a world that runs entirely on green energy. Ørsted develops, constructs and operates offshore and onshore wind farms, solar farms and energy storage facilities, bioenergy plants and provides energy products to its customers.”

The company also has proposed building a $361-million wind farm capable of producing 300 megawatts of power in Zapata and Jim Hogg counties and has requested tax breaks from school districts there as well.

Brown’s love for the land inspired him to create a book of stories and cowboy poems titled “Poet Lariat: Cowboy Poems From A Ranching Life.”

That’s a life he wants to protect.

“Just to reiterate, I am very against wind turbines,” Brown said. “They are all rooted in the western European socialistic block of countries that come here to take advantage of our ridiculous US 'renewable energy’ tax loopholes. They come posing as American companies, which they are clearly not."

”They make millions by mining our much-needed ad valorem tax monies, which they send back to their socialistic governments, ” he said. ”They promise huge tax windfalls for the local taxing authorities after a 10-year abatement.”

Brown said he does not trust the Danish company to fulfill its promises.

“There has been enough time and history now in place to prove that they never pay the amount promised after 10 years — it’s a ruse! This is all planned by these unscrupulous operators,” he said. “They are clearly a bunch of pirates! Once the wind turbines are installed, it is too late. The damage is done! Adjoining land market values instantly decrease up to 45 percent, never to be regained. It’s over.”