Wind energy is on the ballot in Tama County \u2014 indirectly.<\/p>\n
A successful petition last summer<\/a> placed a question on the November general election ballot on increasing the membership of the Tama County Board of Supervisors from three to five. The question is at the end of the ballot<\/a>\u00a0(PDF) as Public Measure TX.<\/p>\n Just over a third of Iowa counties (38) have five-member boards of supervisors. That does not include Linn, Iowa’s second-largest, which went from three to five in 2007<\/a> and from five to three in 2016<\/a>. Based on the 2020 censuses and maps approved earlier this year, Linn (map here<\/a>) has 76,766 people per supervisor district, and Tama (map here<\/a>) has 5712. (Major props to both counties for easily findable map links<\/a>, but Tama County’s homey website<\/a> should work on fixing outdated information at the bottom after the election.)<\/p>\n The supervisors ballot question isn’t just, or even mostly, about representation. It’s about wind farms.<\/p>\n Salt Creek Wind LLC, which is incorporated in Delaware<\/a>, wants to build dozens of wind turbines in central Tama County in a wide area between Garwin and Traer (large map here<\/a>). Conditional use permits were cleared in December 2020, according to the Tama-Toledo News-Chronicle<\/em><\/a>. Bechtel Construction of Virginia would be the builder, the story said.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, Winding Stair Wind, a project of\u00a0Apex Clean Energy<\/a> of Charlottesville, Virginia, announced plans to build dozens of wind turbines in the eastern half of Tama County, the North Tama Telegraph<\/em> reported<\/a>. It’s this latter project that sparked the creation of Tama County Against Turbines, whose meeting in Dysart in April was covered by KCRG (video via KCCI<\/a>), a few weeks after Apex had a well-attended informational meeting in Traer<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Winding Stair Wind website<\/a> is identical to that of Black Maple Wind<\/a>\u00a0in southwest Iowa. There are three search hits for Black Maple Wind \u2014 the website itself, the\u00a0Taylor County supervisors minutes of Oct. 6<\/a>, and an LLC registered in Delaware<\/a> on Sept. 7. This blog post is the fourth. Another division of Apex, Great Pathfinder Wind<\/a>, started construction in Boone County this fall<\/a>. Its website, stock photos, and YouTube videos align with the other two. It’s been around since at least the end of 2019, judging from this KQWC story at Radio Iowa<\/a>. To be clear, it’s no secret that all these wind farms are projects by the same company, which had a majority stake acquired by an investment firm<\/a> in October 2021.<\/p>\n No turbines in either Tama County project have been built yet. The ones near Gladbrook are in a separate MidAmerican Energy wind farm. Those were built under the terms of Tama County’s 1998 wind ordinance that was reaffirmed in 2010 and again this year, an ordinance that TCAT calls “weak” and outdated. The reaffirmation came May 16 in the largest and most heated Tama County supervisors meeting in decades, extensively covered in this Telegraph<\/em> article<\/a>.<\/p>\n Richard Arp, a farmer and former president of the North Tama School Board, alleged in a lawsuit that the supervisors’ decision was illegal and void. The Tama County District Court ruled against him in early October<\/a>, the Telegraph<\/em> reported. There’s another lawsuit against the Tama County Board of Adjustment regarding the permits issued for the Salt Creek project, the News-Chronicle<\/em>\u00a0reported.<\/a><\/p>\n Multiple counties in Iowa have passed moratoriums against wind turbines in the past three years, including Grundy<\/a>,\u00a0Montgomery,<\/a>\u00a0Page<\/a>, and Worth. Worth’s Planning and Zoning Board chairman spoke to TCAT this summer<\/a>. Woodbury County doubled the distance required for a setback<\/a>, that is, the distance between a turbine and a residence or other feature such as a road. Its new regulation is twice the distance recommended by the Iowa Environmental Council<\/a> and substantially more than any other county.<\/p>\n Should the Tama County board expansion measure pass Nov. 8 by simple majority, a new map would be drawn in 2023 and a new board with staggered terms would be elected in the 2024 general election. A five-member board\u00a0would have 3427 people per district \u2014 equivalent to the city of Tama plus 300. A five-member board would not be able to enact any policies until January 2025.<\/p>\n Longtime supervisor Larry Vest is retiring this year. Both the Democratic<\/a> and Republican<\/a> candidates for his replacement in the 1st District support a moratorium, with the latter saying “Tama County needs to make it virtually impossible for any more turbines.” The Winding Star Wind area is in this district.<\/p>\n The ballot says, “Shall the following public measure be adopted?\u00a0The number of Tama County Supervisors shall be increased from three members to five members.” What the ballot doesn’t say is just as important.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Wind energy is on the ballot in Tama County \u2014 indirectly. A successful petition last summer placed a question on the November general election ballot on increasing the membership of the Tama County Board of Supervisors from three to five. … Continue reading
![large map here<\/a>). Conditional use permits were cleared in December 2020,](\"https:\/\/ogden_images.s3.amazonaws.com\/www.tamatoledonews.com\/images\/2021\/01\/14124426\/50832256977_4c7cced12e_k.jpg\"){kind=link}