Muscatine County poised to enact wind farm moratorium

Muscatine County leaders are expected to pause new approvals of wind farms in light of a proposal that will include turbines that exceed 650 feet in height.

“They’re going to have problems with those that nobody in this room’s even thought about,” Muscatine County Supervisor Scott Sauer said in a meeting last week.

The county’s supervisors have discussed potential changes to county turbine regulations during their past two meetings and instructed staff to draft a moratorium for their approval, according to recordings of those meetings. The moratorium is meant to be effective while the county revises its rules.

Those potential revisions stem, in part, from complaints of residents who are unsettled by two companies that propose to build new wind farms in the area. One of the companies is seeking leases with landowners to install up to 60 turbines in the county, according to the West Liberty Index newspaper. The tips of the turbine blades would reach heights of about 656 feet.

Once a fixture of windy Northwest Iowa, wind turbines have grown prodigiously in height and efficiency in the past 20 years, enabling them to be deployed in less windy areas of the state. MidAmerican Energy said its first turbines were about 233 feet tall.

Muscatine County in Eastern Iowa has among the lowest average wind speeds in the state, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Average speeds in Northwest Iowa are about 50 percent faster.

People who oppose wind farms often find them unsightly, noisy and a nuisance to winged creatures. They have lights that blink at night to warn pilots, cast rotating shadows during the day and their blades emit pulsating whooshing sounds.

Dickinson County, in Northwest Iowa, recently rejected a similar project amid outcries from some residents, according to Iowa Public Radio. Opponents said the county’s turbine regulations were outdated and weren’t sufficient for the taller turbines of the project that would reach nearly 600 feet.

But the turbines are an important source of electricity in Iowa. In 2022, wind energy accounted for about 62 percent of the state’s overall electricity production — the largest percentage for any state, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

It’s unclear what revisions Muscatine County might make to its existing Commercial Wind Energy Conversion Systems ordinance, which says the turbines should be placed at least 1,000 feet — or twice the turbines’ height, whichever is greater — from houses, schools and other buildings.

“It’s always a balancing act,” said Eric Furnas, the county’s planning and zoning administrator, during a recent supervisors meeting. “How many specific regulations do we want to impose versus leaving that up to the individual landowners who are considering renting their property?”

He identified several issues the supervisors should consider, including the protection of roads and bridges during turbine construction, the potential for tall turbines to affect weather radars and environmental concerns.

“Bird kill is a real thing,” Furnas said.

He said it might take six months to finalize the revisions.

Last Monday, board Chair Jeff Sorensen directed staff to draft a wind-farm moratorium that would be in effect for nine months, and noted the county could end it sooner if the revisions are complete.

This article first appeared in the Iowa Capital Dispatch.