Wind turbine companies want to be in county
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By Jeff Snyder
SHANNON CITY, Iowa — Like many small rural agricultural communities in Iowa their existence and survival relied on rail service extending through their communities. Shannon City stands as a unique example, as the town exists in both Ringgold and Union counties. By the late 1880s Shannon City was a town of nearly 400 people with four churches, two banks numerous stores and a post office. By all accounts it was a thriving, successful small community that maintained its status until the Chicago Great Western Railway discontinued service through the community and connecting towns. A major fire in in 1891 destroyed most of the downtown area forever changing the landscape and rewriting the town’s future. The town was rebuilt over the next few years with most of the new construction being done on the Union County side of the line creating a complex governmental system that still generates challenges to this day.
Despite the setbacks, Shannon City is still a town with a lot of pride. There is still an active church with a new community center under construction and agriculture still leads the way. An interesting wrinkle in the community’s future came to light when a group of residents from around Ringgold County attended a County Board of Supervisors meeting on August 24.
During this meeting the supervisors heard a proposal from Steelhead Americas who were petitioning the board to allow for the placement of several temporary meteorological towers in Ringgold County that would capture weather data. The data would then confirm the viability of a proposed future wind turbine facility.
One of the families in attendance was the Hartsook family of Shannon City.
After the presentation, Gary and Polly Hartsook agreed to tell their side of the wind turbine story and how it could potentially impact their family. Gary is intimately familiar with the wind industry as a former member of the administrative staff of the now defunct Heartland Wind Turbine manufacturing facility located in Mount Ayr. Heartland was the brain trust of former Mount Ayr community pillar, Paul Ramsey. Ramsey constructed the business in hopes of bringing over 100 jobs to the community while he established his wind turbine manufacturing business but ultimately ran into complications that stymied the growth of the company. The business was eventually shuttered leaving just the building and a collection of aging office furnishings and obsolete equipment.
The Harstook family was voicing their opinion regarding the current environment in place in Ringgold County that makes the placement of any wind turbine extremely difficult given current guidelines for turbine placement.
While there is no formal ban on turbine placement but the rigorous requirements in place makes placement for smaller farming operation impractical. Hartsook’s argument was not so much of the guideline for turbine placement rather it was a concern rooted in the county’s restrictions on what an independent land owner can do with their own property.
The Hartsooks explained the difficulties in farming in today’s landscape with rapidly increasing input costs and the effects that has on the small farmer. Wind farm organizations offer significant remuneration to the participating farms that allow placement of turbines on their property. The Hartsooks indicated the importance of these financial opportunities for future generations as the succession plans for their family farms are hammered out.
Towns like Shannon City only complicate the matter as the two counties dividing this town have starkly different guidelines in place for turbine installment.
The Ringgold County Board of Supervisors agreed to continue examining the requests for easements from companies like Steelhead but gave no firm dates on a final decision. In the mean time, Steelhead presented figures that estimated the tax revenue that would be provided to the county over the next 30 years as a result of allowing turbine placement in the county. The figures are significant, projecting roughly $140 million in tax revenue over the same period.
Wind energy development is a contentious issue and likely will remain so as plans for a high voltage transmission line system are currently being proposed to crisscross a portion of Ringgold County going forward. Power generation without the ability to deliver the power to the grid are typically nonstarters in the power development world. Since these plans appear to have been addressed already, only the generation of the power question remains. Coordination between counties are the likely next step in bringing this issue to a conclusion. Clarity needs to be addressed for the residents of Ringgold County in order for the feedback they provide to the supervisors to be replete with all the facts and wills of the people in regards to wind power generation.
