Changes to wind energy ordinance could be on horizon

Seven years ago, a consortium of Grundy County officials drew up a zoning ordinance that paved the way for two large scale commercial wind farms—one near Wellsburg, which has been in operation since 2014, and one yet to be constructed project on the other side of Highway 175 in Melrose and Felix townships that was approved at the April 11 meeting of the Board of Supervisors. In both cases, the developers faced strong public opposition, and the supervisors overruled earlier decisions from the county’s planning and zoning commission to reject the applications. So, where does the county go from here?
           
Zoning Administrator Carie Sager and the planning and zoning commission are now in the process of writing up a recommendation to the Board of Supervisors on whether to keep the ordinance as it is and potentially invite more developers to put up wind turbines in Grundy County, change it to make the rules stricter or completely scrap the ordinance to ensure that no new projects are allowed after the Ivester Wind Farm is completed.
           
“If it was completely repealed, we wouldn’t be able to allow any other wind farms as a complete commercial set-up. We wouldn’t be able to allow any new applications for them, but we would have to have something in place to have regulations for the turbines that are currently there,” Sager said. 
 
Read more in this week's Grundy Register.