Supervisors pass commercial wind, solar, and battery projects ordinance

After months of discussions and planning, Lee County residents and green energy business wishing to form partnerships with landowners for wind, solar, and battery energy projects now have a detailed set of rules from the county regulating how such projects can operate and establishing protections for any neighboring properties.

The Lee County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to approve a third and final reading of an ordinance to regulate commercial wind, solar, and battery projects during their meeting on Tuesday morning.

The supervisors began working on the ordinance last year and have held several town hall meetings, work sessions, and sought input from residents, state legislators, property-owners, wildlife experts, green energy businesses, and other stakeholders for several months now as they worked to craft the ordinance.

At 49 pages long, the final draft of the ordinance has been available for the public to view on the Lee County website since last month.

“The purpose of this Ordinance is to establish a set of minimum standards for the siting, placement, construction, installation, operation, maintenance, and decommissioning of utility-scale Wind, Solar and Battery Energy Systems, in order to protect the public health, safety and community welfare of the residents of Lee County,” according to the website.

The proposed ordinance covers a wide range of regulations pertaining to green energy projects and partnerships with local property owners, including the following:

• General provisions
• Definitions
• Wind energy system sitting and design standards
• Solar energy sitting and design standards
• Battery energy sitting and design standards
• Conditional sitting permit review and approval processional sitting review and approval process
• Meteorological evaluation towers sitting permits
• Enforcement during each project’s lifespan
• Road use and mitigation of damages
• Wildlife monitoring and mitigation
• Emergency response protocols
• Rules governing decommissioning and abandonment

But the ordinance does not apply to individual property owners seeking to install wind, solar, or battery energy installations for their own personal use.

In previous meetings, the supervisors stated the point of the ordinance was to provide protections to both landowners not participating in any solar, wind, or battery energy projects from any possible impacts from neighboring projects as well as protections for landowners that are entering into such dealings with green energy companies so as to ensure they do not get taken advantage of.

The supervisors have also previously acknowledged the Iowa Legislature may pass statewide laws in the future that overrule any laws and ordinances established by Iowa counties, and have stated that, essentially, passing an ordinance that can be seen as reasonable and fair to both participating landowners and their non-participating neighbors, and thus eliminating any need for statewide laws, would be the best path forward for the county in maintaining control over how such green energy project business partnerships between residents is delegated.

Before the meeting passed on Tuesday, District 4 Supervisor Garry Seyb acknowledged recent debate among Des Moines County residents wishing to see changes made to their county’s solar and wind energy project ordinance (particularly wishing to see greater setback boundaries between participating and non-participating properties).

“(We have looked at what Des Moines County has discussed) and a lot of what (they’re talking about) we have (already) addressed, talked about, or discussed,” Seyb said.

“The numbers that they’re using are not the numbers that we used. But I think we hit a lot of what is being discussed (in Des Moines County).”

The supervisors all stated they had not received any comments on the ordinance from the public or any solar and wind energy businesses other than the input they have received at their public meetings.

“I think that it’s important that we get as much (regulation) in place protecting both sides,” said District 5 Supervisor Ginger Knisley.

“And then down the line, as the industry changes, we can make amendments. But I think it is important to get the ordinance in place.”

Unlike the previous two meetings, no one from the public made any statements or suggestions or pleas for changes to the ordinance before it was passed.