Wind & Solar Leasing in Crockett County, Texas

White Mesa Wind: the scale, in real numbers

White Mesa Wind, near Ozona in Crockett County, is a 500-megawatt project built with 180 GE wind turbines -- large enough that, on completion, it ranked as the third-largest single-phase, single-site wind farm in the United States at the time, behind only Apex Clean Energy's own 525-megawatt Aviator Wind elsewhere in West Texas. Apex Clean Energy developed the project and announced its sale to an undisclosed buyer in August 2020; the project reached commercial operation in November 2021. According to Apex's own announcement, White Mesa Wind provides approximately $80 million in payments to Crockett County landowners and roughly $50 million in additional revenue for Crockett County itself over the project's contracted life -- real, publicly stated figures rather than a generic 'wind leasing can be lucrative' claim.

White Mesa Wind is also tied to a Chapter 313 property tax value-limitation agreement with the Crockett County Consolidated Common School District (Comptroller agreement ID 1284), one of several such agreements in the county -- the Texas Comptroller's own agreement database is the authoritative source for the current status and terms of that specific agreement.

More than one project: a genuine cluster, not a one-off

White Mesa Wind is not the only wind project tied to Crockett County. The Texas Comptroller's Chapter 313 agreement database lists Big Sampson Wind (whose assessed value was limited to $30 million for its first ten years under its agreement) and Shamrock Wind as also tied to the Crockett County Consolidated Common School District; Shamrock Wind is a wind-and-battery-storage hybrid project (81 GE wind turbines plus a 100 MW/400 MWh battery energy storage retrofit), not a pure battery-storage conversion as an earlier version of this page suggested (CORRECTED 2026-09). A fourth project, High Lonesome Wind, spans both Crockett and neighboring Upton Counties -- its developer, Enel Green Power, describes the project as sited 'in Upton and Crockett counties,' and the Texas Comptroller's database separately lists a Chapter 313 agreement tied to Crockett County Consolidated CSD No. 1239 for the project, distinct from its Upton County (Rankin ISD) agreement (CORRECTED 2026-09, restoring High Lonesome Wind after an earlier revision of this page had removed it as Upton-only). The combination of one very large flagship project plus three additional named developments within a single, sparsely populated county is a genuine cluster, not a single anomalous deal, and it means a landowner here is more likely to already have a wind-industry-experienced neighbor, transmission infrastructure nearby, or an existing project abutting their own tract than in a county with no wind development at all.

Why this is happening: a maturing oil and gas base looking for new revenue

Crockett County's wind boom is directly tied to the county's oil and gas story, not separate from it. Ozona is described in on-the-ground reporting as a small ranching-and-oil outpost where the county's oil and gas fields are now a 'mature' region -- meaning many wells are past their peak productive years -- and ranchers have responded by actively pursuing wind leases as a new, steadier (if typically smaller per-year) income stream to supplement declining or unpredictable oil and gas royalties. That context matters for a buyer: a wind lease offer on Crockett County land is arriving into an area where the underlying economic motivation (replacing maturing oil and gas income) is well understood locally, and where landowners have real comparison points -- neighboring ranches with existing leases -- to benchmark an offer against, rather than negotiating in a vacuum.

Before signing a wind or solar lease in Crockett County

1. Ask neighboring landowners with an existing lease (White Mesa Wind, Big Sampson Wind, Shamrock Wind, or High Lonesome Wind) what per-acre or per-turbine terms they negotiated, where legally permitted to share -- Crockett County's existing project density means this kind of local benchmarking is realistically available here in a way it isn't in a county with no wind development.
2. Check the Texas Comptroller's Chapter 313/312 agreement database directly for the current, authoritative terms of any tax agreement tied to a specific project or school district, rather than relying on summary figures.
3. Confirm with the Crockett County Groundwater Conservation District whether a planned wind or solar project's water use (for turbine-pad concrete, dust control, or a solar site's panel washing) requires well registration or a permit.
4. Have a Texas energy or real estate attorney review any lease's term length, decommissioning bond, easement scope, and payment-escalation clauses before signing -- Crockett County's track record of built projects doesn't substitute for reviewing this specific offer's terms.