The document outlines an agreement in which Horizon will allow for payments to landowners living near the immediate vicinity of turbines, in exchange for "an easement, right and entitlement on, over, across and under owner's property for any sound level (audible or otherwise) in excess of 50 decibels ..." The Illinois Pollution Control Board recommends that people not be consistently exposed to noise levels over 40 decibels. Since the turbines can generate in excess of this amount, the agreement will pay $1,000 annually to property owners for the next 30 years with a 2 percent annual increase in the payments. ...Rick Porter, attorney for opposition group Union Ridge Wind, said he would advise his clients to not sign the agreement. Porter said the agreement gives Horizon the right to infringe on the residents' properties.

Nearly 20 people filled a meeting room to voice their opinions about ordinances governing wind farms at a meeting of the Ford County Board's Environmental Committee on Thursday night. "We're not here to stop wind farms by any means, but to protect homeowners from towers right next to their houses," said committee Chairman Gene May of Paxton. ...City Attorney Bob Martensen of Paxton said legislation adopted in August 2007 is confusing to many. His opinion is that the law allows concurrent jurisdiction by the city and county for a 1.5-mile radius around a municipality. Developers would then have to comply with whichever code is most restrictive. He said his recommendation would be that the Paxton City Council members prohibit wind farms within a 1-mile radius of city limits. "If we expect the city to grow we have to have reasonable setbacks," he said, adding the council has not yet considered action on the issue.

One of the two wind-energy companies interested in bringing 180 turbines to Ford County has secured long-term leases with landowners for about 2,400 acres of farmland east of Paxton. "We have signed over 2,400 acres and expect another 2,000 in the next two or three weeks," said Joe Borkowski, development manager for E.On Climate & Renewables, which is targeting the east side of Paxton for the development of 100 wind turbines.

It took three hours Thursday night in a crowded school gymnasium for the Woodford County Board to postpone action on the controversial El Paso Wind Farm until its July meeting. "The actions that I've witnessed here tonight make me sick to my stomach," El Paso Mayor Herb Arbuckle said to the roar of the crowd. Arbuckle was among 20 people making public comments to the board after an extended fight between board Chairman John Krug and board member Gary Jones on what agenda the board should be using. ...All this and more occurred before the public input part of the agenda and clearly agitated the approximately 200 people, most opposed to the project, who had been waiting on hard bleacher seats. Many were opponents who say turbines are unsightly and zoning limits tied to them will hamper economic development. "Look me in the eye and tell me you don't value my quality of life," Don Kingdon, former El Paso school board member, told the board. "Do you believe you have the right to take away my lifestyle? How many businesses will not come to El Paso when you put me in the shadow of those blades?" Board member Thomas Janssen said he will insist that no towers be within 1.5 miles of El Paso.

From a distance they're eye-catching, yet tiny. The closer you get, however, the more imposing the wind turbines in eastern McLean County become. Wondering how big they are is natural. Bill Whitlock, who works for the company that operates the Twin Groves Wind Farm, knows you're wondering. He believes an open-air visitor's center of sorts, scheduled to open early next month, is the answer. ...With 240 wind turbines, Twin Groves is the largest wind farm east of the Mississippi River. It may get even larger. "We've held preliminary meetings with landowners," Whitlock said, adding the company might seek zoning approval next year for expansion.

Woodford County Board member Larry Whitaker was removed Thursday from his seats on three county committees after he tried to place the contentious El Paso wind farm project before the board, officials confirmed Friday. Board Chairman John Krug said he pulled Whitaker, a 10-year veteran of the board, from the Road and Bridge Committee, the Conservation, Planning, and Zoning Committee as well as his seat on the Tri-County Regional Planning Commission because Whitaker overstepped his bounds and possibly opened the county up to litigation.

Logan County regional planner Phil Mahler said he expects to hear a lot of opposition to a proposed wind farm at today's Regional Planning Commission meeting, set for 7:30 p.m. in the Logan County Courthouse. Barb Aper of Union Ridge Wind hopes to exceed Mahler's expectations. ... One of Aper's main concerns is that no one has addressed how she is supposed to navigate outside of her residence with the main roads to the east and west set to be blocked by construction. "A county board member told me that I should stay at my mother's house while they were doing construction," Aper said. "I have a heart condition and am worried about having access to those roads." This is only one of the concerns dismissed by county board members, according to Aper.

Instead of requiring an escrow account for the work, a proposed change also would allow the additional options of a surety bond or irrevocable letter of credit. Actually, there already is a financial incentive to remove the turbines when their lives are over, said Mike Arndt, senior development manager of Invenergy, which is building a 66-turbine wind farm south of the Illinois River.

But in 2005, it was thought revenue from wind turbines might offset costs and make other increases unnecessary. Three years later, the wind farms haven't been built. In the meantime, wind turbine manufacturers are getting more for their product because of higher demand. Although Henry County had based its building fees on the cost of the turbines, it may price itself out of the market unless a change is made. ...

Clean Energy Concepts must wait until they reach a land lease agreement with an unnamed landowner before moving constructing the county's wind farm. "We're in a holding pattern until we get the land secured," said Matt Cumberworth, managing director for CEC. "It's hard to pinpoint a time frame (for completion) because we're in April and we hoped to have it done in February." ...What Cumberworth could say is the county's portion of the land agreement is completed and CEC is now working on assessments.

Developments on the proposed Rail Splitter Wind Farm proposed for northern Logan County and southern Tazewell County played out in three different arenas Tuesday night. In Pekin, the Tazewell County seat, supporters of the energy project outnumbered opponents for the first time during a public hearing. In Lincoln, the Logan County Board approved extending the Lincoln-Logan County Enterprise Zone to 29 parcels of land where wind turbines will be built. And, representatives of Horizon Wind Energy, the wind farm’s Houston-based developer, asked the city council to follow the county board’s lead and approve the enterprise zone extension.

Illinois lawmakers and energy executives announced a 25,000-acre wind farm stretching across Christian and Montgomery counties that officials said could bring hundreds of construction jobs to the area. The plan would create a 300-megawatt wind farm with 150 to 200 turbines on 25,000 acres. It would power tens of thousands of homes. Officials of Dominion, the Virginia-based energy company proposing the project, estimated that it would bring in about $1 million annually in tax revenue to be split between the two counties. ...Construction on the project, to be named Prairie Fork Wind Farm, is supposed to begin in 2010.

Joe Borkowski, development manager for E.On Climate & Renewables, a division of an international company with offices in Chicago, met Friday with landowners from Button Township targeted for the construction of 70 to 100 wind turbines. The night before, Matt Kauffman, president of Stewardship Energy LLC, a company based in Bureau County, conducted an informational meeting about his company's plans to build 50 to perhaps 80 wind turbines along a 5-mile stretch of Illinois 9 starting at least 1 mile east of Paxton.

The Bureau County Board has unanimously approved a $1.7 million decommissioning plan with the Big Sky wind farm developers. At Tuesday's special board meeting, Bureau County Engineer John Gross gave an overview of the decommission plan, which totals $1,760,800 for the county. The Big Sky decommissioning plan details what it would cost the county in the event the county became responsible for decommissioning, or dismantling, the Big Sky wind farm. The $1.7 million total breaks down to about $30,891 per turbine for the 57-turbine Big Sky project in northern Bureau County.

County engineer John Gross said he had worked with Midwest Wind over the past couple weeks to come to an agreement on the decommissioning plan. "The final amount will be adjusted with two line items added," Gross said. Line items added to the approved decommissioning plan included engineering and construction services at $150,000, and restoration of turbine areas at $188,100. Gross said in lieu of transporting pieces off-site, the entire structure will be scrapped on site for an estimated salvage value of $300,000.

The fight to stop wind farm developers from running 20 miles of high-voltage power lines through the center of Lee County may not be over. Amboy resident Sam Taormina approached the Lee County Regional Planning Commission Monday night, loaded with questions about why the company was pouring the foundation for new poles in a wetland across the street from his state Route 26 home. ...One thing, however, is clear: Taormina plans to pursue every avenue he knows to stop Big Sky Wind from installing high-voltage transmission lines above ground, instead of burying the cable or tying into the grid elsewhere.

County planners tonight will continue discussing the future of wind farms in Lee County - specifically, what to do about future wind farm companies looking to string high-voltage transmission lines across vast areas of unincorporated farm country. Lee is among the first counties in the state confronted with the question of how to regulate private power lines, a problem that first cropped up last year when Big Sky Wind secured building permits for 20 miles of new transmission lines from its soon-to-be-built project near Sublette to existing ComEd lines in Dixon. The final path, which roughly follows State Route 26 through the center of Lee County, irritated a handful of homeowners in Amboy Township, some of whom fear the new power lines may have adverse effects on their health, property values and overall enjoyment of the backyard view.

Some say counting carcasses isn't enough. That's why Illinois is changing the way it wants studies of wildlife around wind farms to be performed as more of the clean energy installations are planned around the state. Previous research has been based almost entirely on mortality counts, the process by which bird and bat carcasses are scooped up early in the morning within a several hundred foot radius of wind turbine bases. But studies now are aiming to determine a more long-range impact on avian and terrestrial creatures by examining how animals react to the sudden presence of a vertical structure soaring as high as 450 feet into the sky. The shift in practice comes as other mortality studies are under way in the area, but only a few have been completed in the state. ..."It's unfair to assume, I think, that there's no environmental effects from wind (energy)," said Keith Shank, an impact assessment specialist with the DNR. "Until we get some firm data, the problem is, people are making multimillion-dollar investments with insufficient information."

A civil suit against a wind farm developer and McLean County will continue after a judge told opponents of the installation to refile motions in the case on Tuesday. Information is Power, a group of residents who oppose the White Oak wind farm planned by Invenergy for eastern McLean County and parts of Woodford County, now will have to refile several motions. A request by the group to reinstate McLean County Board members into the suit was denied in January.

A proposal to build an environmentally friendly 100-room hotel and conference center and a green energy museum in the Sauk Valley has found support from a local zoning board and officials at Sauk Valley Community College. Bruce and Joyce Papiech, who own a 41-tower wind farm north of Sublette in Lee and Ogle counties, took their plan before the Lee County Zoning Board Thursday. The plan also includes the addition of 74 new windmills to their existing farm. The board unanimously voted to recommend the plan to the Lee County Board, which likely will consider the project on Jan. 15.