Sheldon, Iowa — While O’Brien County is home to Iowa’s largest wind farm, not too far away, there is some strong opposition to the towering turbines.
Wind farms are just as plentiful in southern Minnesota as they are here, but in at least one location where developers hoped to put in a wind farm, the idea was met with a less-than-enthusiastic reception. In Freeborn County (home of Albert Lea and Hollandale), residents organized a grassroots effort to block the project, going door-to-door to drum up opposition to the plan. They hired an attorney and testified at the state level.
Opponents of the wind turbines have cited a number of reasons. Some say they are unsightly and will lower property values. Some say they can’t stand the “wooshing” sound made as the large blades rotate. Some even cite health issues they believe are caused by the turbines, such as irritability, dizziness and being unable to sleep.
Wind energy advocates say that because roads around turbines need to be upgraded to handle the turbine construction traffic, often property values actually increase. They also say that there have been no independent studies that implicate the turbines in the occurrence of health issues. And they wonder if fossil fuel advocates are secretly funding the opposition.
It is hard to argue with the fact that wind turbine properties generate property tax revenue. The sticking point in Osceola and O’Brien counties recently has been what to do with that tax revenue. That’s a question to which answers are still being formulated.
