02/08/2025
I have been contacted multiple times in the last week about this post that Bright Future Iowa has posted to their website. It is verbiage from the Clinton County Board of Health meeting that was held in early January. My comments were related to a decision that the Board of Health made at their December meeting to sign a letter developed by the group that is opposing the wind turbine development in Clinton County.
The letter had multiple suggestions that the Board of Supervisors are asked to take into account when making our revisions to our current ordinance for wind turbine development. The one issue that stood out to me that could be detrimental to other aspects across our county to include the agricultural community was their suggestion to set the noise limits of the wind turbines to 30 decibels from 6:00am to 6:00pm and lowered to 20 decibels from 6:00pm to 6:00am. The attached information does show what noise levels are for multiple different activities. A normal conversation is 50 decibels. Once this information was realized by multiple people I received a number of calls about a few different ag related to noise issues related to bin fans and dryers operations this fall, fans were the largest issue. Many had been operating 24/7 since early September through the December meeting.
I have worked to stay as neutral as possible in all public forums, discussions, meetings when discussing but not making any decisions. I have researched, reading, having multiple in-person and phone conversations with those who support and oppose the wind turbine development. That is my roll, to stay neutral and base my decisions upon the factual information that I have been presented and researched on my own.
My concern with the low decibel levels are these levels are out of touch with reality. After these comments were made by myself during the board of health meeting, I further discussed with County Attorney Wolf. There is not a way for the county to be able to set an ordinance that would impact the ability of a farm operation to perform the work in the fields or have a dryer or fans operating at their bin sites. That is not to say that if a fan had a bearing go out and was operating in a way that produced a noice outside the norm that notification could be made to repair the problem and a civil matter could be made by a neighbor(s) against the offending party. Similar case could be said if someone was operating a tractor in a field over night with a straight pipe. Being neighborly is expected in Clinton County.
We held a meeting on Thursday that some preliminary decisions have been put in place. I will not go into those this morning. I will say that the preliminary noise ordinance for the wind turbine development has been set, again preliminary, at 38 decibels 6:00am to 6:00pm and 32 decibels from 6:00pm to 6:00 am.
If you have questions or concerns with this or any other issue related to Clinton County Government please feel free to reach me via email at:
[email protected]
Cell: 563-340-4025
Thank you for taking the time to read through my post.
Have a great weekend!!!
Jim Irwin
Clinton County Supervisor
Sweeping new noise regulations proposed for wind farms in Clinton County could have far-reaching implications for how farmers work their land. If proposed
