Floyd County supervisors reschedule second reading of commercial wind energy ordinance

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

The Floyd County Board of Supervisors has rescheduled the second reading of a proposed commercial wind energy and battery storage ordinance due to a meeting conflict.

The supervisors made the change at their regular meeting Monday morning. The second reading of the ordinance is now scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 3, at 6:30 p.m. in the EOC room at the Floyd County courthouse.

The meeting will be the second of three “readings” of the proposed ordinance. The first reading was held Tuesday, Aug. 6, during which the proposed ordinance was heavily amended by 2-1 votes of two of the supervisors, Jim Jorgensen and Dennis Keifer. Supervisor Chair Mark Kuhn voted against all the amendments that passed 2-1.

The two supervisors said they were acting on the concerns of rural residents who would be affected by the wind energy projects.

Kuhn said at the Aug. 6 meeting that the purpose of revising the county’s old commercial wind energy ordinance had been to “develop an ordinance that met the needs of the wind turbine industry so they could grow and be placed in this county, and at the same time meet the needs of nearby neighbors and have concerns about our precious natural resources, our water, our air, our land.”

“I think we have diverted to a position that is indeed not going to allow any wind turbine companies to locate in Floyd County,” Kuhn said at that earlier meeting.

After a third and final reading, at a time and date still to be determined, the ordinance would become county law.

Project leaders from two companies that have been actively involved in developing new wind energy projects in Floyd County both said that if the ordinance is passed as amended that commercial wind energy projects will not be possible in Floyd County.

Invenergy has been working on developing a 180-megawatt project it calls the Marble Ridge Wind Energy Center that would include 30 to 50 wind turbines. NextEra Energy has been developing a 300-megawatt project that would include about 100 turbines.

Also at the meeting Monday morning, the supervisors:

• Approved a couple of change orders totaling almost $6,000 for the new countywide public service communications system to allow for additional costs for work at the Charles City City Hall to connect the existing radio tower located there to the system and at the site of a new 300-foot-tall communications tower being built near Rockford because of a longer run of fiber optic cable than had originally been planned for.

• Appointed Roy Schwickerath to the Floyd County Conservation Board for a term to expire June 30, 2028, to replace Doug Johnson, who resigned from the board.