A Kansas county unanimously votes to ban new commercial wind turbines
Another county in rural America has decided to ban the development of industrial wind projects.
On Tuesday, Dec. 14, the Reno County, Kansas Commission unanimously voted to ban commercial wind development in all zoned areas of the county. A plan to create a new zoning overlay district that would regulate wind for the remaining un-zoned areas of the county was tabled until Jan. 11, 2022.
The vote came more than three years after a pair of residents first appeared before the Reno County Commission seeking a moratorium on wind development. The residents sought the moratorium after NextEra Energy, one of the largest wind companies in the country, began buying up land leases near their homes for a proposed wind farm in the southeast quadrant of the county.
Earlier in 2021, American Experiment released a report by Robert Bryce that detailed the growing pushback against industrial solar and wind development in rural areas of the country in states spanning from Maine to Hawaii.
This pushback has materialized in the form of bans on wind and solar development, and the adoption of standards that set minimum distances commercial wind turbines would have to be set back from homes, property lines, and roads, and maximum amounts of noise and shadow flicker the turbines would be allowed to create.