During closing arguments, Assistant U.S. Attorney Nolan Fields said that amount was needed to compensate the Osage Minerals Council for the damages caused to the mineral estate when the wind farm was built without authorization.
“This was about money,” Fields said regarding the decision by the wind farm owner to not seek the required permit, adding that it was also about “complete disrespect for the Osage Minerals Council.” The Minerals Council is an arm of the Osage Nation that owns and manages all the mineral rights in Osage County. Wind farm owner Enel Green Power North America Inc.
claimed in its closing argument that the U.S. government wrongly calculated the damages amount owed.
Enel said the true amount of damages was $68,993, based largely on the market value of the limestone that was blasted out of the ground to build the turbine tower foundations. The case is now in the hands of U.S.
Court of International Trade Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves, sitting by designation. Since the U.S.
Supreme Court’s McGirt ruling in 2020, several federal visiting judges from other jurisdictions have helped ease the case load in Tulsa federal court that resulted from the ruling. Choe-Groves, who was assigned the case in February 2023, ruled in December that granting permanent injunctive relief via ejectment of the wind farm for continuing trespass was warranted since Enel never obtained the necessary permit required to blast the rock to make the foundations. But Choe-Groves did n.
