A Tulsa federal judge came down hard on Enel energy, ordering the company to remove dozens of wind towers it installed on Osage Nation land in northeast Oklahoma.
The order came in a lawsuit brought by the Osage Nation which controls virtually the entire county when it comes to energy projects. The suit was also the longest running wind energy fight in the U.S.
It won’t be cheap to carry out the order. The estimate cost is close to $300 million as Enel has to remove 84 of the turbines it constructed on 8,400 acres of Tallgrass Prairie between Pawhuska and Fairfax.
As OK Energy Today has reported, the legal fight started 12 years ago and led to a decision by U.S. Court of International Trade Judge Jennifer Choe-Graves who granted permanent injunctive relief via “ejectment of the wind turbine farm for continuing trespass.”
The Osage Nation sued after Enel put up wind towers and the tribe said it amounted to mining rock that it owned. Enel continued with construction after the Bureau of Indian Affairs ordered work to stop. The tribe owns the mineral rights in the county as the result of a purchase from the Cherokee Nation ni the late 1800s.
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