Some rural Americans push back on wind energy; land is meant for 'cattle and corn, not turbines and transformers'

A wind farm by corn fields near Latimer, Iowa (Reuters photo by Jonathan Ernst)

In 1941, the first modern wind turbine was built in Castleton, Vermont, current population 4,500. Fast-forward 44 years, and the popularity of wind energy has grown exponentially with rural areas as their primary focus, but the push is meeting with rural resistance, reports Joe St. George of Scripps News. "The White House and many environmentalists want to build more wind projects around the country. From offshore sites to new wind turbines on farmland, it's a push that has some big dollars behind it. . . .Over $370 billion in taxpayer money is set to be spent on clean energy projects, like wind, in the coming years."

Wind turbines are considered eyesores by some. Their blades average 200 feet long, and turbine towers average over 300 feet tall—about the height of the Statue of Liberty. "If you want one, you live beside it." Jon Winkelpeck of Tama County, Iowa, told St. George. "These huge industrial wind turbines you will see for miles . . . It's our job to protect our farmland."

Winkelpeck has many allies. "If you go on Facebook, you'll find over 1,200 members of the group Tama County Against Turbines," St. George writes. "Heather Knebel, a Tama County resident, stays informed through social-media posts and scheduled meetups that are posted in the group. It's also where she has learned about possible safety risks from ice developing on the blades of turbines during winter. To be clear, the wind industry says ice can form but de-icing solutions do exist."

"Similar fights are underway in Colorado, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan and other states," ST. George reports. "With President Joe Biden and other officials hoping newly created tax credits will spur wind development in the coming years, small-town opposition is quickly becoming a big problem. . . . . In Tama County, for instance, the landowner has to sign off before anything can be built."

Some rural residents favor wind energy. Kathy Law, a farmer and an attorney who represents the industry in Iowa, "believes misinformation is an issue, something that is easy to spread online," St. George reports. "Wind, she said, is safe, and with some parts of rural America worried about the future of their economies, wind represents cash. Farmers can be paid a couple thousand dollars a year for putting just one turbine up."

Winkelpleck told St. George that his land is meant for cattle and corn, not turbines and transformers: "We aren't interested."