January 5, 2012
Illinois

Wind projects move forward

BY BRIAN L. HUCHEL, Commercial-News, commercial-news.com 3 January 2012

DANVILLE – A Vermilion County Board committee meeting for the county’s second wind farm has been scheduled for later this month.

Bill Donahue, an attorney for the county, confirmed the date during Tuesday’s joint meeting of the county board’s finance and executive committees.

The structural safety committee, according to Donahue, is scheduled to meet at 5:15 p.m. Jan. 18 on the second floor of the courthouse annex, 6 N. Vermilion St.

Committee members will hear the details of the permit application from GDF SUEZ Energy North America Inc.

The company, based in Houston, Texas, is coordinating a Hoopeston project calling for the construction of 43 wind turbines along a stretch reaching from around 3 miles east of Illinois Route 49 to the area near the Hubbard Trail Country Club north of Rossville.

Kolby Riggle, former environmental health director for the county health department, is chairman of the structural safety committee. Also seated on the committee are Vermilion County Recorder Barb Young, county highway engineer Doug Staske, former Danville alderman Bob Iverson and former county board member Robert Watson.

Committee members will discuss and determine whether the wind farm application meets with the building requirements of the county’s wind farm ordinance.

Once approved by the structural safety committee, a wind farm permit application still must be approved by a vote of the full county board.

The structural safety committee voted to approve the wind farm permit for Invenergy LLC in July after hearing public comments and asking questions of an Invenergy official.

The meeting announcement came during comments from audience members Darrell and Kim Cambron of rural Rankin. The couple have repeatedly spoken out regarding concerns they have with the wind turbine projects.

Darrell Cambron, in speaking to the committee members, reiterated the couple’s feelings that the county’s wind ordinance must be reworked, calling it “inadequate.”

The ordinance, originally passed in 2009, was changed last year to increase the fee per turbine and the distance turbines can be built from property.

“Do we want the county completely blanketed by these things,” he said, alleging 40 percent of Livingston County property was leased to wind farm projects.

“How many is too many?”

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2012/01/05/wind-projects-move-forward/