Two measures were successfully approved by the Adair County Board of Supervisors pertaining to amending Ordinance 31, which deals with the assessment of wind energy conversion properties in the county.
At their meeting Aug. 10, the Supervisors authorized Hopkins and Huebner, P.C. to draft an amendment to Ordinance 31. Hugh Cain, from that firm, presented the Board with options for that amendment at Thursday’s meeting, which was held in the Greenfield City Hall meeting room due to the courtroom being unavailable.
A large crowd gathered at the meeting. Joanie Finck and Tanya Lamb each spoke against the wind turbines, Finck dispelling what she perceived as errors in Randy Caviness’ presentation a week prior and Lamb showing several videos warning of the ill effects of industrial wind turbines.
Kelly Hall, a young farmer in Adair County who is from Hancock County, where there are also wind turbines, testified that while the construction phase of wind farm development may seem to have natural, ill effects, the after effects the county gets monetarily are much greater and are much more positive. Dan Dreher, from near Adair, stated to the Board that he’s never had any concerns with living so close to the wind turbines that are in his area, though he respects the feelings others have on them.
The Supervisors also
received 27 letters from MidAmerican participants stating their approval of the wind farms being built in the county.
Then came decision time for the Supervisors, who heard Cain’s recommendations before any decisions were made.
“I have prepared for you an amendment to your wind energy ordinance. It has several different options. It has an option for you to place a limitation on the distance between an occupied structure and the tower base, there’s another option where you could place a limit on the distance between the property line of a non-participating owner and the tower base, then there’s an option for you to place a cap on the total number of towers on wind energy conversion properties in the county,” Cain explained. “Those are the options I now present and you have a copy for. It would have an effective date of 60 days after the ordinance is passed and published.”
After much discussion, Chairperson Jodie Hoadley, who voted nay on two different measures during the meeting that eventually failed, and Supervisor John Twombly, both stated that they want to make sure everyone is as satisfied as possible, participants and non-participants alike.
“I don’t want to take wind turbines away from anybody. I just feel like the non-participants need to have a voice. The ones that want them, they’re putting them on their own land. If it’s your land and your home then you have a right to put them there, but do you have a right to put them up next to somebody else’s house that isn’t going to participate because you don’t want your terraces tore up, or whatever? There’s room for both,” Hoadley said. “We can’t take advantage of those who didn’t choose to be in that situation and didn’t know until it was a done deal with those land owners.”
Twombly added to that later in the meeting when the Supervisors were trying to decide how and what to set new setbacks on.
“I don’t think we should restrict a participant because we don’t want to restrict them from having a wind turbine either. The farther you put the setback distance the less wind turbines they’re going to be spotting,” Twombly said. “I understand what these people are saying who have an issue with it but I also know people who want the wind turbines and want the revenue. We’ve got to make a decision here based on making everyone as satisfied as we can. I have no personal interest in this, except for what the county has to look at, and I don’t want to look at a lawsuit either, so we need to get this thing straightened out.”
A motion made to put in place a set back distance of 1,700 feet from a non-participant’s residence died for a lack of a second. Another motion made to put the setback distance at 1,750 feet went to a roll call vote and failed, David Homan and Hoadley voting nay, Matt Wedemeyer and John Twombly voting aye and Shelley abstaining.
The measure that ended up passing by 3-1-1 vote, with Hoadley voting nay and Shelley abstaining, was to set a set back distance on future industrial wind turbines of 1,800 feet from the center of a tower to a non-participating landowner’s foundation.
A second measure that passed sets a 500-foot or tower height set back, whichever is greater, from a non-participant’s fence line to the center of a tower. This amendment mainly relates to farm ground. A major reason given for this set back is for aerial sprayers to not have their needed airspace infringed upon.
The supervisors discussed setting a cap on the amount of wind turbines that can be built in Adair County, though that decision died when a vote ended in a 2-2 tie with Shelley abstaining.
Those items passed will not go into effect until they have had three readings and been published.
Other major items on the agenda Thursday included the possibility of an Adopt-a-Highway program being started for county roads. A proposal was given to the Supervisors but any action on the matter was tabled. Rick Schaecher, Veterans Affairs Director, was granted back pay and added to the county’s current cell phone policy.