Minnesota
Future of discarded Minnesota wind blades cloudier after company disappears
Travis Warmka, the city’s former fire chief and co-owner of the lot, said he expected to be a temporary “transfer station” for the blades. Now he worries he will get stuck with the task of getting rid of them.
So he took matters into his own hands.
On Aug. 18, a city employee saw a skid loader with a stump grinder attachment next to a wind turbine blade, Christian said. It was Warmka, and his grinding created a cloud.
“It isn’t just dust, it’s fiberglass,” Christian said. “I immediately sent him basically a cease and desist and told him there will be no processing of those blades of any kind, grinding, crushing, anything until I get an air and water permit from the MPCA.”
That letter says “numerous people” reported Warmka.
For his part, Warmka said he wasn’t trying to “clean the pile.” Rather, he briefly “touched” one turbine blade to see what would happen, and if he could cut one in half. The grinding lasted less than a minute. “It was just by luck that everybody was driving by apparently at that time,” Warmka said.