NOTE: Interested parties may co-sign a joint letter to the Iowa County Board that will be mailed to all Supervisors no later than February 12, 2021 here: https://bit.ly/Co-Sign-IA-Co-Board-Ltr-202102 . Interested persons are also encouraged to attend the ZOOM County Board meeting on February 16, 2021 and may speak, briefly, towards the start of the meeting. See info on Calendar

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Uplands Wind is a 600 MW wind turbine proposal by Pattern, consisting of approximately 170+ wind turbines, 600-700 feet tall covering 30,000 acres in Iowa and LaFayette Counties. Because merchant power plant developers are not required to notify a community prior to seeking out lease agreements with landowners, it wasn’t until September 2020, after Pattern gave a Power Point presentation to the Iowa County Zoning Committee. that some of us became fully aware of the project. It became obvious, upon review of the Iowa County Wind Energy System Siting Ordinance (the Ordinance), that revision to this Ordinance were needed. Some of the reasons that revisions to the Ordinance are needed include:

• The Ordinance is dated (from 2014);
• The resolution establishing fees for review is also dated and would not cover present day costs for subcontracting review, etc. to professional subcontractors;
• The Ordinance did not contain public protections for noise, flicker, signal interference or stray voltage and lacked a complete and comprehensive complaint process to give the public redress for problems that may occur;
• The Ordinance was weak in the area of notification of the public, information and public hearing opportunities for the public or documentation (that may be useful in complaint or appeal processes);
• The Ordinance did not contain all of the financial protections allowing the County to cover its’ costs for reviewing applications, decommissioning, and other regulatory roles.

Between September and November of 2020, I put together suggested revisions (Revisions) to the Ordinance which primarily involved adding all of the missing requirements from PSC 128, into the Ordinance. In November, these Revisions were presented to Scott Godfrey, County Planning Department Director and Zoning Committee member.

The Revisions were presented to the County Zoning Committee on December 2cnd (2020). Zoning Committee discussion including:

• Concerns raised about workload:
• Potential liabilities;
• Importance of protecting citizens and having a modern Ordinance when a modern project makes an application.
• The possibility of an injunction to new applications until revisions to the Ordinance could be completed;
• One statement from a Supervisor regarding protections of the public being made to satisfy “complainers”.
• Agreement to begin serious discussions at the next meeting (which was cancelled and finally convened on January 26^th)

At the next Iowa County Zoning meeting, on January 26^th, the issue of revising the county’s 7- year old Ordinance was tabled after brief discussion. Some of the issues discussed by Zoning Committee members (Members) at this meeting were:

• Because the County cannot make their Ordinance more restrictive than State Code, Members questioned whether those standards that the county can enforce are of enough public benefit to offset the cost and liability. The truth is, if county residents experience health effects (from noise or shadow flicker), signal interference (with any electronic device) or stray voltage issues, they would have NO RECOURSE. County residents could bear a financial burden for review and management of Wind systems under the existing Ordinance.
• Members stated that appeals to a county decision under its ordinance ultimately can be appealed to the Public Service Commission, so the county doesn’t have the final say on an issue. The truth is, decisions made by the County, as a legislative body, can be contested. This should not be a new concept for County Supervisors. That an aggrieved party has the ability to appeal a County decision on Wind Systems to the PSC does not eliminate all County authority. The County does have a say on whether to incorporate and provide protections for county residents that are allowed in State Code.
• Members questioned the value of having an Ordinance at all, given the limits to authority in statute and the liability it creates for the county. The truth is, refusing to update the County’s Ordinance does not limit liability to the county or its duty to protect the public interest. Without protections added to the Ordinance, residents that become physically ill from living in proximity to a wind turbine may be forced to sell their property at a significant loss, or worse have to abandon their property because they cannot sell it. There are real life examples of these occurrences.
• Members stated the decision of whether the county sites a wind facility is between the landowner and developer. The truth is, while landowners decide whether to sign a lease agreement, this does not eliminate the County’s duty to protect ALL landowners or eliminate the County’s authority to do so under the State Code. The county should consider their responsibility to protect landowners who choose not to participate in hosting wind turbines. Non-participating landowners are not the ones who are threatening their community with extreme changes, such as going from a rural character to an industrial setting or threatening their neighbor’s property values or land use decisions. Zoning requirements are established for the express purpose of moderating situations where a landowner’s personal choices about their property interfere with the rights of their neighbor’s. The Board should also consider that it is common for those who sign lease agreements to have second thoughts when they discover the many downsides to the agreement, not disclosed by savvy landsmen.
• Members discussed the concern of liability, in the form of suits, from wind developers or from residents (“complainers”). There was also concern over workload and whether the cost of adding requirements was worth it. The truth is, the county cannot avoid liabilities that may result from developers siting wind facilities in the County. The County would have costs and their authority to recover those costs from wind developers is in the proposed revisions that the Zoning Committee decided to table! The county is placing risks on the public by refusing to include protections for the public in their Ordinance.
• There were some dissenting voices to these feeble and self-serving rationales for avoiding revisions to the Ordinance, but they were not able to carry the day and the Zoning Committee decided to table revisions to the Ordinance.

It is disturbing that the County does not see protection of the public as a primary responsibility. It is also disappointing that, after determining to limit inclusion of protections for the public, the Zoning Committee felt it was not important to bring these impactful findings to the attention of the entire board. If Pattern submits an application to the County, the existing Ordinance is beyond ill-equipped to deal with it, because it omits important tools the County can use: in billing developers; establishing a decommissioning fund; and protecting the public. The County may well find itself in debt after processing the proposed project, under the current Ordinance and associated resolution.

WHAT CAN YOU DO TO HELP CONVINCE THE FULL COUNTY BOARD TO REVISIT REVISIONS TO THE ORDINANCE?

• Call, write or email your (all) County Supervisor and express concern, disappointment, outrage, etc., at the Zoning Committee’s failure to add critical protections for the public into their out of date Ordinance. Requesting that revisions to the Ordinance be pursued and that this issue be added to the agenda of the February 16, 2021 Iowa County Board Meeting for further discussion.
• Request that Chairman John Meyers recuse himself from the discussion and all future actions involving the Ordinance because of his openly stated conflicts of interest involving wind system developers. (Meyers has openly stated that he works, on a “daily basis” directly with, or for, wind system developers.) The public deserves an unbiased decision on matters of such importance.
• Write an LTE, asking the county to add the proposed revisions.
• Come to the next County Board Meeting and tell the entire Board why revisions are important and necessary and how disappointed you are that the zoning committee is more concerned about liability and workload than protecting the public from harm.
• Or Sign the letter to Iowa County Supervisors, County Planning Director and Corporate Council AT: http://bit.ly/Co-Sign-IA-Co-Board-Ltr-202102 Text entry instructions on top. This must be done ASAP, because the next County board meeting is coming up, and it would be good to get this on the Agenda. Folks can also call the clerk, (608) 935-0399, and ask that this topic be put on the Agenda of the February 16, 2021 Iowa County Board Meeting.

What Points to Make

• Without the proposed revisions incorporated into the current Ordinance, key protections for the public will not exist for Iowa County Residents.
• The public protections in State Code (PSC 128) MUST BE INCORPORATED INTO LOCAL ORDINANCES FOR THEM TO BE ENFORCEABLE. The PSC WILL NOT ENFORCE THE PROVISIONS SUGGESTED to be ADDED in PROPOSED REVISIONS to the countys’ wind Ordinance.
• Refusing to revise the Wind Ordinance will not protect the county from being sued. Keeping the existing ordinance without revision leaves the county at great financial risk, due to lack of authority to charge wind developers for county reviews. The suggested revisions contain the authority for the county to charge developers for review, etc.

UPLANDS WIND WOULD CHANGE THE FACE OF IOWA COUNTY

AND THE LIFESTYLE WE CURRENTLY HAVE.

WE NEED THE WIND ORDINANCE REVISED NOW!