Opinion : Letter to the Editor: Buchanan County resident asks for residents to take notice

By Vinton Today · June 27, 2023, 7:14 pm

Dear Editor,

While Benton County did an admiral job of keeping wind farms out of the county, if NextEra Energy gets its way in Buchanan County, folks in the northern parts of Benton County will be subjected to the same destruction of their quality of life as those of us just “across the border”. NextEra Energy has proposed placing a wind farm just north of the Benton/Buchanan Road and about a mile west of Brandon.

Wind turbines are also proposed for north of Brandon, east of Brandon and at Rowley. Currently, they are proposing 70 wind turbines. However, as has happened in other counties, once they get their foot in the door, the pressure may come to add even more. I can see the grain elevator in LaPorte City about 10 miles from my home. It may be around 200 feet tall. The wind turbines are going to be between 500 and 600 feet tall; possibly three times taller than the grain elevator. So, it would be real easy to see a wind farm from ten miles away. One of the proposed Brandon wind farms will be about a mile from my home. My family did not move out to the country to live amongst skyscrapers.

So, let’s get back to you folks in Benton County. You will be able to see the wind farm from the Vinton airport, about 6 miles to the north. Wind farms can be no closer than 6 miles from the airport; just made it by a hair. Depending on where you are located in Vinton proper; you too may be able to see the wind farm from 9 to 10 miles away. Urbana will be able to see the Brandon and Rowley wind farms.

I am sure people will enjoy having their once beautiful horizon cluttered with a bunch of 600 foot twirling skyscrapers. The closer you get to your “northern border”; the more you will not only be greeted with this horrendous eyesore; but you can start weighing the other “benefits” such as various types of health issues, noise pollution, infrasound, shadow flicker, reduced crop dusting, harm to poultry and livestock, killed bats, bald eagles and other birds.

If Benton County folks are not looking forward to this travesty, a lot of people in southern Buchanan County would appreciate you contacting the Buchanan County Board of Supervisors accordingly. You can find a link to their three email addresses on the Buchanan County website page. If you would like to get a good dose of reality, simply go to https://bucoa.org/ .

Chris Urban

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SJW July 25, 2023, 5:54 pm Wind turbines could come to Benton County, it just depends on how much they are willing to pay Primmer to get it approved.

SJW July 24, 2023, 6:56 pm Where is the outrage when huge housing developments or CAFOs blight the landscape and take up valuable farmland. People don't eat field corn and soybeans, meat consumption is down. Just playing devil's advocate. I don't disagree with the argument. Solar power seems more environmentally friendly. Stop driving your SUVs and big trucks and try to do something about global warming.

CU July 17, 2023, 10:12 pm PW.You can order signs from the Victory Store in Davenport, IA. 563-362-2245 Trevor@victorystore.com BTW,some new material has been posted on bucoa.com.

JS July 14, 2023, 10:20 am A machine that is required to move 500 tons of earth/ore, which will be refined into one lithium car battery, burns 900-1000 gallons of fuel in a 12-hour shift. Lithium is refined from ore using sulfuric acid. The proposed lithium mine at Thacker Pass, Nevada is estimated to require up to 75 semi-loads of sulfuric acid a day! The acid does not turn into unicorn food (as AOC believes). Refining lithium has created several EPA SUPERFUND SITES. IT IS VERY TOXIC TO THE ENVIRONMENT! A battery in an electric car, let’s say an average Tesla, is made of: 25 pounds of lithium, 60 pounds of nickel, 44 pounds of manganese, 30 pounds of cobalt, 200 pounds of copper, and 400 pounds of aluminum, steel, and plastic, etc...... averaging 750-1,000 pounds of minerals, that had to be mined and processed into a battery that merely stores electricity... Electricity which is generated by oil, gas, coal, or water ( and a tiny fraction of wind and solar )... That is the truth, about the lie, of "green" energy. There’s nothing green about the "Green New Deal". You people better learn how to vote or this nonsense will continue to flow down on top of you from the throne of government upon of which you put these people. Stop drinking the Green New Deal’s sulfuric acid Kool-Aid! “Woke -- a Synonym for Stupid”

CU July 10, 2023, 5:02 pm @MU: Not to worry about where your electricity comes from. NextEra Energy made the following statement on their Facebook page: "Did you know? On average, a single modern wind turbine can generate enough electricity to power up to approximately 900 homes in a year." So often we hear wind developers or solar developers claim that "X" number of wind turbines or "X" number of solar panels can produce enough energy to power "X" number of homes. Yup, about 30% of the time. But "what ya gonna do when the wind don't blow and the sun don't shine?" (I could turn that lyric into a song.) Why shucks, if the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining, we'll just rely on the back up; you know; coal, natural gas, nuclear. Problem is, the "green" developers have already decommissioned way too many, way too soon. Well, I guess we'll just have to try putting up with rolling blackouts or rolling brownouts until the wind starts to blow again and the sun starts to shine. No problem.

GM July 6, 2023, 4:18 pm The wind turbine people have tried to come into Benton county already but Benton county has an ordinance in effect that states no wind turbines or solar panels in the county

CU July 6, 2023, 12:09 am LS:This past Monday my wife and I visited the Invenergy wind farm project, just north of New Hampton. We found the operations center which included a portable cement plant, construction equipment, and large rolls of wire cable to be buried in the ground to connect the turbines. There were also 15 modular housing units equipped with AC. So much for local hotels in New Hampton. If you are going to rely on local workers, why the modular units? Local workers would be returning home each night. It would appear that many of the construction jobs are being brought in from outside the area. The local concrete company will have a few jobs hauling the concrete to the turbine sites for a few months. Which leads to the question of how many local jobs will NextEra Energy actually bring to Buchanan County in spite of all of their rosy promises.

MU July 5, 2023, 3:35 pm @LS That's simply not true, and wind turbine companies have a long history of grossly over-estimating the number of jobs they will create. Throughout the various presentations NextEra has given, they've repeatedly reduced the number of permanent jobs they claim this project will create because they've been called out about the fact that their claims don't match historical reality. At this point, they say it will be 5 to 10. This is down from the original 20+ they originally told the P&Z it would create. Do you know how many jobs we lost because of the closure of the Duane Arnold Nuclear Power plant? Around 600 so far. It will be over 800 full-time, good-paying jobs lost when the decommissioning of the plant is complete. Wind turbines cost more jobs than they create. I would also point out that the residents of a rural area in Pennsylvania were told a wind farm there would create a couple dozen new jobs. In the end? It created only two. Furthermore, are you aware that Kirkwood Community College is closing their Wind Turbine Technician program and no longer accepting new students? The stated reason is low enrollment and lack of interest.

DC July 2, 2023, 3:13 pm As far as I'm concerned if this administration doesn't want to use OUR OIL I hope they push the windmills down the throats of those that voted them into office, and they will. Just like the EV situation being created. Later Dave

MU July 1, 2023, 1:11 pm @CB Thank you for your support. And you are right, there's a good chance Benton County could be next. The wind energy industry itself already admits they have more than 5,800 MW of additional wind turbines in the queue to be placed in Iowa. That means that as of right now, the wind energy industry already has nearly 2,000 new wind turbines planned for Iowa. Because they want to tie into the existing Duane Arnold infrastructure, which is basically sitting idle right now after the shutdown of the nuclear reactor, there's a very good chance that Benton County will be next. They need to come up with 601 MW of capacity to make up for the lost generating capacity when Duane Arnold closed. Since wind turbines operate at less than 35% of their rated nameplate capacity on average, that means they will need approximately 640 wind turbines to make up for what the Duane Arnold nuclear plant produced.

CU June 30, 2023, 10:51 pm CB, Regarding your post; to make it easier for others to contact the Buchanan County Board of Supervisors: Clayton Ohrt (Chair) - 319-332-1766 - cohrt@co.buchanan.ia.us Dawn Vogel - 319-332-1765- dvogel@co.buchanan.ia.us John Kurtz - 319-332-1764- jkurtz@co.buchanan.ia.us

CB June 30, 2023, 8:18 am Please contact the Buchanan County Supervisors by email and let them know you are against wind farms in Iowa. As a Benton County resident, I emailed all three and received a response from two of them. They welcomed feedback from another county resident. Make your voice heard, it may be our county next.

RS June 29, 2023, 5:41 pm I know of a family in Benton County whose neighbor built a large wind generator. When the turbines turned they constantly could hear them. Also out west where they have wind farms, crews that work on them tell about finding dear birds beneath them.

CU June 29, 2023, 4:25 pm Here comes the never ending claim about all of the jobs being created. After the turbines are built in 3 to 6 months, those TEMPORARY jobs will be gone. Now, how about the hundreds of jobs that were lost when the nuke plant at Palo was shut down? If the wind industry wasn't so heavily subsidized by the federal government, (your taxpayer dollars) I doubt that the wind farms could make it on their own. Senator Charles Grassley, said back in 2015: “As the father of the first wind-energy tax credit in 1992, I can say that the tax credit was never meant to be permanent.” Yet, here we are 31 years later still subsidizing big wind with our taxpayer dollars. MidAmerican, a subsidiary of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, snagged $249 million in federal tax credits in just one year. He is on record as saying “I will do anything that is basically covered by the law to reduce Berkshire's tax rate. For example, on wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That's the only reason to build them. They don't make sense without the tax credit." How telling is that?

RB June 29, 2023, 3:36 pm No wind farms for Buchanan County. They ruin the land, ruin your health, kill the wildlife and destroy the landscape. They do not create any long lasting jobs, they wreck our already poor roads and create hostility between neighbors. The only person who benefits from a wind turbine on their land is the owner of the land. And they arent truly benefiting as their land is being ruined for years and years. Please say no to wind farms.

LS June 29, 2023, 12:52 pm Wind energy is a clean renewable source of energy that creates many good paying jobs for Iowans. Progressing into the future with better sources of energy is a necessity. It is important to look ahead and help FUTURE generations to work, live and stay in Iowa and slow our dependance on foreign oil.

JS June 28, 2023, 5:52 pm Stop the madness. It ain't gonna work

PW June 28, 2023, 2:52 pm Where can we get the signs No wind Farm?