Future of discarded wind turbine blades in Minnesota town gets cloudier after company disappears

The strange saga of wind turbine blades dumped in the small Minnesota town of Grand Meadow has taken another turn after the company that promised to remove them abruptly went out of business.

Meanwhile, the co-owner of the vacant lot where the turbine blades are piled tried to cut one up with a stump grinder before the city ordered him to stop.

On Thursday, the state Public Utilities Commission will decide if it can or should step in. They may not have any help from Canvus, the company that pledged by year’s end to ship the blades to the Ohio facility that makes park benches out of them.

Canvus is defunct, said one of its former executives, Brian Donahue. Donahue said he has formed a new wind recycling venture that’s different in at least one significant aspect: It has no responsibility for the turbine blades in Grand Meadow.

City leaders and residents fear another broken promise since the gigantic fiberglass and metal junk was dropped on an empty lot nearly four years ago.

“It’s the same old thing,” said city administrator James Christian. “They leave a mess behind when it’s not convenient for them.”

After renovating a wind farm near Grand Meadow in 2020, the large wind developer NextEra Energy struck a deal with the recycling company named RiverCap Ventures to dispose of the blades. RiverCap went out of business, but a successor company, called Canvus, assumed responsibility for the blades in 2022 and said it would convert them to benches.

When the PUC began to investigate, Canvus pledged action before its Grand Meadow lease expires at the end of the year.

Donahue said he was fired Aug. 15 from Canvus by its majority shareholder, Alex Kowalski. Five days later, Donahue incorporated a new company called Noblewins and said he acquired Canvus’ digital assets, book of business and intellectual property. Donahue said Kowalski is not involved, though Kowalski’s daughter is a Noblewins spokeswoman.

That change apparently came without warning. Christian said he was not notified but that Canvus’ website and social media was down. The PUC wasn’t notified either.

Tony and Travis Warmka leased the Grand Meadow lot to RiverCap — an arrangement the city contends violates its zoning ordinances. When asked Friday if he knew whether Canvus was defunct, Tony Warmka replied: “I have no idea,” and hung up.

Kowalski did not respond to calls requesting comment. Donahue said he did not think the promise made by Canvus to Grand Meadow was dishonest. “I think at the time it looked like we were going to just barely make it,” he said.

An Ohio judge last Wednesday granted $123,500 to a pair of companies who alleged Canvus did not pay a retainer for transporting and offloading wind turbine blades. In May, a judge granted another logistics company $244,025.

Xcel has said the wind developer who switched out the blades would “step in to ensure that the wind turbine blades are removed” by the end of the year if Canvus failed. Still, Christian said he has not heard from NextEra Energy and wants a concrete plan.

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.

“We’re looking for Plan C or D,” he said. “If it all falls back in my lap, which it’s somewhat looking like, then I’ve got to figure out what we’re going to do with them.”

Susan Du contributed to this story.