Floyd County wind energy mediation group releases report with no consensus in key areas

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

Floyd County’s commercial wind energy ordinance mediation group has released its final report after more than six months of meetings, outlining proposed rules for utility-scale wind farms but showing members failed to reach agreement on several key issues.

The 46-page document was made public late Thursday afternoon under a deadline set at Tuesday’s Floyd County Board of Supervisors meeting.

Supervisors Boyd Campbell and Gloria Carr, the two current members of the three-seat board, voted to extend the county’s current commercial wind energy moratorium to Oct. 7 as part of a resolution that called for the mediation report to be released by 4 p.m. Thursday.

The report includes a redlined version of a highly amended draft ordinance, supporting exhibits and maps, and notes on areas where the group could not agree. Among those unresolved items is a cap on the number of wind turbines countywide, setback distances from occupied dwellings and from properties that are not part of a wind project.

The ordinance as amended at its first and second hearings held last fall put a limit of 70 turbines in the county, including the 50 that already exist in the MidAmerican Charles City wind energy project.

That limit – allowing only 20 additional turbines to be built in the county – was called one of several “poison pills” in the amended proposed ordinance that would prevent any future commercial wind development, according to representatives of two companies that are working to build wind projects in Floyd County.

The mediation document shows that Supervisor Boyd Campbell and attorney Thomas Reavely had been willing to agree to a 90-turbine limit, while attorney Samantha Norris, representing the proposed Marble Ridge Energy Center project that is being planned by Invenergy, had advocated for at least 100 turbines. Since the group did not reach a consensus, the redlined ordinance still shows 70 turbines.

In some areas the group did reach a consensus, agreeing to recommend various property setbacks, turbine heights, turbine noise limits, and other ordinance requirements.

Some of those recommendations are more strict than were in an original proposed wind energy ordinance that had been recommended by the Floyd County Planning and Zoning Commission, but less stringent than the amendments that were in the ordinance after work stalled in the middle of the ordinance’s third reading on Oct. 9, 2024.

The mediation group was appointed by the Floyd County Board of Supervisors in November 2024 after the Floyd County attorney said a Worth County District Court decision that had gone against that county in favor of a wind company might indicate a similar fate for Floyd County’s amended ordinance.

Members of the mediation group are:

• Former Iowa Supreme Court Chief Justice Louis Lavorato, a professional paid mediator.

• Supervisor Boyd Campbell, who was then the newest member of the Board of Supervisors, having taken office last November after work on the proposed wind ordinance had stalled.

• Floyd County Attorney Todd Prichard, who said his opinion was that a judge would likely reach the same conclusion against Floyd County’s actions and amended ordinance as the judge had in Worth County.

• Thomas Reavely, an attorney who had been hired by Floyd County at the recommendation of then-supervisors Jim Jorgensen and Dennis Keifer to get a second opinion on Prichard’s recommendation regarding the Worth County case.

• Samantha Norris, an attorney representing Invenergy’s proposed Marble Ridge Wind Energy Project.

• John Robbins, a senior planner with the North Iowa Area Council of Governments (NIACOG), who had worked with the Planning and Zoning Commission and the supervisors on creating the proposed ordinance.

Lavorato did not vote. Prichard and Robbins participated in meetings but declined to vote on ordinance language. That left Campbell, Reavely and Norris to cast the deciding votes on proposed changes.

Places where the three voting members agreed include raising the decibel limit for noise from turbines at dwelling places, from the 40 dba in the amended proposed ordinance to the original proposal of 50 dba; setting the maximum height of turbines at 600 feet, up from the amended ordinance’s 450 feet; and setting the setback from bald eagle nests from the 5 miles in the amended ordinance to 1 mile.

Neither a maximum turbine height nor eagle nest setbacks were in the original proposed ordinance.

Another agreement calls for decommissioning rules requiring 110 percent of eventual removal costs to be set aside by the developer before construction, with cost estimate updates every five years.

Developers would also have to conduct wildlife studies, host public meetings, and provide emergency response plans and training. Lighting would need to be radar-triggered if allowed by the FAA.

But many details remain unsettled. On many setbacks, for example, Norris voted for shorter distances while Campbell and Reavely supported longer ones.

The group did not consider battery energy storage rules at all after failing to agree on whether to include them. Those will need to be handled separately if the county chooses to regulate them.

Next steps are up to the Board of Supervisors. The mediation report is simply a recommendation, and one that did not come to an agreement in many areas.

None of the supervisors who were involved in the first readings and amending the proposed ordinance are now on the board of supervisors.

Jorgensen, who had been appointed to fill a vacancy at the start of 2023, did not run for election, and his District 3 supervisor seat was filled by Campbell in November 2024.

Keifer, the District 2 supervisor who had joined with Jorgensen in passing the amendments to the original ordinance, died earlier this month, and his District 2 supervisor seat will be filed by appointment, although residents of that district can petition for a special election either before or after the appointment is made.

Supervisor Mark Kuhn, a strong advocate of rules that would allow wind energy projects in the county and who vigorously opposed the amendments to the original wind ordinance proposal, did not run for re-election, and his District 1 seat was taken over by Gloria Carr, the former 20-year county auditor who had said during the wind energy proceedings that she was ashamed of the way Jorgensen and Keifer were acting.

Now, with Carr firmly on the side of regulations that would allow wind energy projects to be developed, and Campbell leaning toward more strict regulations, the person who is appointed – or ultimately elected – to Supervisor District 2 could hold the deciding vote on any future action on this topic.

And if a new wind energy ordinance is passed, regardless of what it says, its future may be decided in court in what has been and is one of the most hotly contested issues in Floyd County government in many years.