By: Nathan Bloechl — nathanb@977thebolt.com
Dakota City, Iowa — Every week there’s a new windmill post. And here’s another.
The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors approved the first reading — as-is — of a new ordinance for windmills in the county, that would seemingly allow landowners to act as sub-letters to wind energy companies and receive compensation.
There has been similar public blow-back and criticisms at each one of the many supervisors’ discussions on windmills over the last six to seven months.
In the magistrate courtroom at the courthouse, concerned citizens cited “health concerns”, “tower height”, and “noise levels”, as reasons to not allow windmills, or simply crack down harder on the ordinance.
The ironic part of the hearing was that those concerned citizens believed the supervisors needed to be fair to their side as well — which of course has flaws.
If the supervisors were to be fair to those against windmills and crackdown on the ordinance, they would be inherently unfair to those who do want them on their property.
Which once again stems back to many of the supervisors’ first statements — that it’s not their job to tell landowners what they can or cannot do with their land. That’s why they bought it, for opportunities like this, whether they want to enter or not.
From the county’s perspective the idea of adding windmills to landowner farms means more revenue to the bottom line. For the smallest county in the State of Iowa, that’s almost a no questions asked “must-have.”
Supervisor Bruce Reimers posited: “By a show of hands how many would be in favor of raising taxes [to help the bottom line]?” None of the citizens who voiced concerns over the windmills raised their hands, proving the validity of the need for additional revenue for the county.
Listen to the full story below, including audio from Steve Sandven — who is exploring adding windmills to his property: