August 11, 2018
Iowa

Adair County supervisor’s meet in closed session Friday to discuss wind farms

Posted by tomrobinson on August 9, 2018 | 965ksom.com

(Greenfield) The Adair County Board of Supervisors’ will meet with legal counsel in closed session Friday morning regarding possible wind energy site regulations requested by a concerned group of Adair County residents.

MidAmerican Energy Company is building two new wind farms in Adair County. The Arbor Hill and Orient projects include a total of 275 turbines that will produce up to 550 megawatts of wind generation capacity, enough to power 230,000 average Iowa homes.

This project has sparked concern amongst a group of concerned Adair County residents whose primary goal is to ensure any specific zoning provisions that are adopted reflect the goals and address the concerns, of the Adair County citizens.

The group’s secondary goals include; directing the development of locations that minimize conflict with existing land use and develop specific zoning provisions that are flexible within various districts throughout the county.

The group is concerned about the direct or indirect loss of land for agricultural use, interruption of draining tiles and overland surface flows, restricting access for aerial applicators, soil compaction during installation and repair, increased traffic resulting in wear and tear on the county road system and impacts on other public entities.

The group also notes visual impacts, “typical” zoning provisions regarding height, separation distances from lot boundaries and adjacent land uses, noise, density, light flicker, airflows, color, interference with other electrical systems and similar issues attendant with wind energy, amongst other concerns.

The group would like the supervisors to consider ordinances for existing ambient noise and turbine noise not be allowed to exceed 50 DBA, minimum setbacks of 3,000’ from residences and 1,000’ from property lines.

The closed session will be held at 10:00 a.m. Friday at the Adair County Boardroom in the courthouse.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2018/08/11/adair-county-supervisors-meet-in-closed-session-friday-to-discuss-wind-farms/