November 20, 2018
Illinois

Survey to determine wind energy forum focus

By Nick Draper | Jacksonville Journal-courier | November 20, 2018 | www.myjournalcourier.com

Morgan County residents are being asked to participate in a survey that will help get their questions about wind energy answered during an Apex Clean Energy forum later this month.

Apex will host a community forum from 6:30 to 8:45 p.m. Nov. 27 in the Franklin High School gymnasium. Leading up to that meeting, an online survey will be available at lincolnlandwind.com for Morgan County residents to submit questions they’d like to have answered during that forum.

“We know there are specific subjects that people care about,” said Helen Humphreys, public affairs manager for Apex. “We know people care about property value, sounds, decommissioning. … If a majority of questions are about sound, we’re going to give more time to sound. If someone has a specific question about a subject we haven’t even though of, we’re going to find experts to answer it.”

Apex Clean Energy has proposed a wind farm project that would install between 83 and 120 wind turbines to add 300 megawatts of energy to new Ameren energy lines with the goal of providing clean, renewable energy to the region.

The forum is intended to ease residents’ concerns about the wind farm proposal and to address any inaccurate information that might be circulating, Humphreys said.

“This is an industry that has advanced significantly in the past 10 to 15 years and some people believe what was true 10 to 15 years ago is true today, and that’s just not the case,” Humphreys said. “We think people want to have access to accurate information about wind energy and wind energy development and how it could potentially impact Morgan County.”

Along with the online survey, Jacksonville Public Library will accept surveys that are being printed in the Journal-Courier. Humphreys said those who don’t have access to the survey in some form can write down their questions on a piece of paper and submit it to the library so long as they let the front desk know specifically what the paper is for.

The forum will be moderated. Those attending also will be able to submit questions via note cards and those questions that aren’t answered during the forum will be answered online. A video of the forum will be available online afterward for those who can’t attend the forum.

“We believe that even if we aren’t able to answer questions at the forum because time doesn’t allow or we don’t have the right expert there that we should still answer the question,” Humphreys said.


URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2018/11/20/survey-to-determine-wind-energy-forum-focus/