If commercial wind power becomes a reality in Washington County, county planners want to be ready.

Planning Board members for the past few months have been receiving research from the planning department on general concerns involved with commercial wind operations.

What precipitated it was the approval of conditional use permits for towers in the county to test the feasibility of commercial wind power.

The Planning Board plans to review staff-generated information on regulation during the April 2 regular meeting.

The staff recommendation will reflect the planning department's philosophy to "protect the general taxpayer and not try to be too overregulatory," Planning Director Juliet Richey said when interviewed Thursday about the issue.

She said that will mean "practical, common-sense guidelines."

Staff plan to use information gathered from other communities throughout the country when making the recommendation. A spreadsheet has been created comparing regulations from different municipalities and counties in each category of concern surrounding wind power.

After giving its recommendation, staff will ask for a Planning Board recommendation.

"We're going to get their feedback on each category and then, hopefully, kind of meld those two together," Richey said.

That will provide a basis for drafting some kind of an ordinance that, if passed by the Planning Board, would have to be passed on to the county services committee and, if forwarded, approved by the Quorum Court, Richey said.

Randy Laney, chairman of the Planning Board, has talked about how the technology to store the wind power is the key in a state that does not generate as much wind power as other states.

Planning Board member Robert Daugherty said wind power "looks to me like a win-win situation. I'm all for anything we can do to save our energy for the youth of the future. I think the main thing I would look at would be how close is it going to be too close to a neighbor's residence. I can't imagine it's going to be a noise problem."

If the turbines are in the right location, he said, he does not see any kind of diminishment of property values.

He said he would be for minimum regulation and common sense.

"That's what we try to do on the board in the county is reach that delicate balance between commerce and residential such that we can combine both," he said.

The Planning Board on Jan. 8 approved conditional-use permit requests for meteorological towers to be placed on ridges in the southeast part of the county to determine the feasibility of productive wind turbines in those areas.

The conditional-use permits were approved for Invenergy Wind Development, which is a Chicago-based company, to place the test towers on the property of Henry and Vickie Rankin, 16028 Sunset Road, and Lane and Robert Spears, 18687 Kilowatt Road. The nearest homes to the towers are 350 feet and 219 feet away, respectively.

The company is leasing the land for the test towers.

Wind issues

Planner Courtney McNair has studied how commercial wind power has been regulated in other cities and counties. Staff members did not find many ordinances in Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas or Missouri. Most of the ordinances were within individual cities and applied mainly to small, individual operations.

Prior to providing the Planning Board with this information, staff also looked at general issues associated with wind power. Those include noise generated by the engines and the sounds of the blades.

Staff members have determined that more research will be needed to determine how much noise is actually created and how far away from the turbine the noise can be heard. None of the current research indicates that livestock is affected by this sound. Vibration can occur if the noise is at the correct frequency, which could cause property damage.

Planning staff met with the Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corp. and Ozarks Electric Cooperative in late February to discuss general transmission issues concerning how energy created by wind turbines would get to the "grid."

They found out about two possible solutions. The first is that the applicant can run lines from the towers to an existing transmission line that would hold the extra energy. The second option is that the applicant could run an interior system of lines that then connect to an energy company's substation, and the energy is distributed from there.

Some information they picked up from the meeting - as far as they understand, Richey said - is that wind power is infrequent and the peak output of energy from it is usually during the lowest point of energy use during the day.

When the wind is not producing enough power, the other types of generation facilities can be adjusted to produce the necessary amount, and, when the wind is producing more power, the other generation facilities can be adjusted down to a certain minimum level; wind is probably not feasible to make up more than about 20 percent of the power because of this infrequency.

An environmental impact statement/report should be considered as a condition when reviewing potential wind towers, according to county planning staff. Some studies show that birds and bats could be negatively affected by wind towers, but others show that they do not.