June 30, 2025
Wisconsin

Rural Columbus residents organize to battle Alliant Energy Wind Farm project

Terri Pederson · Jun 27, 2025 · wiscnews.com

Columbus residents are calling for the town board to tighten restrictions on wind turbines, in light of a sizeable wind farm Alliant Energy is proposing for 48,000 acres in the southeast corner of the county.

A special meeting was held in the town of Columbus on Wednesday at the request of residents who want address concerns over a planned Alliant Energy Wind Farm project.

The purpose of the meeting was to set up a date to discuss a petition to hire an attorney who could draft standards, which will be added to the July 14 agenda.

However, after about 100 people from area townships arrived at the town hall, Town Board chair Darren Schroeder announced he was concerned about the legality of the meeting.

Schroeder had met with the town attorney who said that the meeting did not meet an open meetings law restriction and was not properly posted in time to have the meeting on Wednesday night.

“You guys can have all the discussion you want,” Schroeder said, before leaving. “You are welcome to do it, but I can’t.”

Frank Liska, an area resident who is also a retired attorney and former Milwaukee County Court Commissioner, disagreed that the meeting violates open meeting laws, but he offered to speak about the effort behind the petition.

While there will be only about 45 properties that will have windmills on them, there are other issues for not only the environment but also firefighters, Liska said.

“The bearing design on these windmills tend to overheat,” Liska said. “They will either overheat and seize, in which case they smash up all the gears inside of the furnace, and the furnace and the turbine sit there … or it burns, because there is a bearing fire.”

If it burns, area fire departments do not have ladder trucks that can reach the housing area of the windmills. There are things that could be put in place to help prevent damage that would have to be addressed with the ordinance.

Health and safety haven’t been a concern in the initiative to bring the new form of energy to the area, Liska said. The windmills could make it difficult for medical helicopters to land and assist farmers.

“That is the reason for the ordinance to have the tools to make sure that the things that are critical to all of you are being addressed,” he said. “It is not for today. It is for tomorrow and the next day, and you don’t have that until you end up with the ordinance that protects you.”

Columbus Wind, LLC contacted landowners with large acreages about two years ago, said Lori Schwoerer, who was among the landowners that were contacted.

“We had said no, we don’t feel it was for us,” Schwoerer said. “We did not at the time realize that not everyone knew about the project, or then I would have been more personally involved getting word out. All these plans came down from the state, county and the township level without seeming to letting the public know.”

The citizens organized to petition the meeting in hopes to introduce an ordinance to tighten the restrictions on wind turbines before the project goes before the Public Service Commission for approval, Schwoerer said.

Other concerns included disrupting the community’s aesthetics and character, concerns about noise and other impacts on people or animals, and the community’s geology and wetlands.

Resident Donnie Bleich isn’t a fan of the wind farm project but said when the project was brought to the township, a lot of residents’ concerns were addressed in meetings he attended.

“That was the time we should have banded together,” Bleich said. “Now I hate to say it, but it is too late.”

All the meetings are posted and there were multiple meetings in a row when the township addressed the wind farms, he said.

“It is nice that everybody came, but two years ago is when everyone should have showed up,” Bleich said.

If approved, the project could provide power to up to 70,000 homes annually, or produce 700,000 megawatt-hours a year, Alliant Energies has projected. In total, there would be between 40 and 50 turbines that would go up around rural areas in Columbia County including Columbus and Fall River. Alliant hopes to have the windmills up and operational by 2028.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2025/06/30/rural-columbus-residents-organize-to-battle-alliant-energy-wind-farm-project/