Jarrod: You have a turbine and the blades rotate. As they rotate when the one blade is straight up that is how they measure that. That would be 650 from when a blade is straight up in the air.

Has the setback been adjusted accordingly?

Jarrod: Specifically with Taylor Counties ordinance it is scalable. In the sense that there is a hard and fast number for setbacks. It’s 1.1 times the tip height which is basically your safety barrier. That is scalable to the size of the wind turbine. If it’s a taller wind turbine it would get setback further.

Will the energy stay local? If not, where will it go for this project?

Jarrod: Again, we are really early on. We would need to get a power purchase agreement and those details would be sorted out. From a technical standpoint every electron produced from Black Maple goes onto the transmission lines. From the transmission lines its mixed up with every other kind of generation. So you'll have coal, natural gas, wind, solar, and nuclear. They all get mixed up on those lines. Effectively everybody is using that power. Which is going to make America energy independent. We are going to have a diversified portfolio of energy all going on the same transmission lines. There are a million different ways to structure power purchase agreements. I won’t bore you with the details. Basically, those electrons are used on the grid we all use.

We are very early and not at that level of design yet. There’re actually some unique Iowa regulations about what you can talk about and what you can’t before you have a specified public forum. We have ideas where we would like it to be, but not specific desired locations.

How does other companies trying to get acres signed up affect this project?

Jarrod: There’s going to be competitors everywhere. Going back to the assessment and how we select site locations. One of the things we look at is capacity coming down the lines, so certain kinds of generation is rolling off and getting replaced with newer generation. There’s going to be locations where they know there is capacity on the lines, and they are going to go try to sign those areas. So, it won’t affect it. One of the goals with projects when you’re designing a wind farm you’re trying to look at contiguous land.

Jarrod: Apex is unique. I can’t say how other companies approach it. We are all voluntary easements. We started land acquisition about a year ago and will continue it until early fall. Simply put Apex does not use eminent domain. We are voluntary and we understand it is a big commitment and want to be respectful of your decision to participate or not participate.

During construction are you going to stay off non-participating landowners land?

Curtis: Yes, that is correct. Whenever we start construction, we have a map for all crews and then they know what routes we can take. There will be signs put up for construction traffic.

Could Apex apply dust control in front of homes on the truck routes and tower sites?

Does the season of the year effect the flicker and other problems and do you take that into consideration?

Meagan: Absolutely. Yes. The shadow flicker is going to occur most at sunrise and sunset. The way we model is we will get inputs from a nearby city that is collecting climate data. We will put that in our model, and it will tell us the probability of sunshine in each month. So, it takes cloudiness into account as well. When we are modeling it will tell us exactly when shadow flicker in anticipated. That’s all calculated when we are deciding where to put turbines. It will tell us this house is experiencing shadow flicker during these times of day and time of year.

Is it true that Mid-American had to get a permit from the US Fish and Wildlife service to be able to kill a lager number of birds?

Jennie: I’m aware of Mid-American getting a take permit for bats. They may have got one for birds. I’m not aware of it.

Jennie: No. I presented from the desktop publicly available data. That is all we have available right now. We just started doing surveys and are collecting site selective data. So, it’s to be determined.

Are you donating money to replace animals the turbines kill? Will you create a habitat somewhere else? 

Jennie: Is something more to do for the community and more for conservation of wildlife. Our environmental team is largely environmental biologists. We care about it a lot. Apex cares about it a lot. We feel like it’s an important thing to do.

Jennie: No. It’s not. I don’t have a good answer for you other than $1000 seemed like a good round number. So that’s what we came up with $1000 per megawatt.

Dr. Ellenbogan: The short answer is no and the nuanced answer is yes. Ok the short answer is no and that’s the answer I’m comfortable with. Health Canada did look at a number of things such as headache, dizziness, hearing loss, blood pressure, high stress, cortisol, you name it. It also added quality of life which was not affected but annoyance was. There was a higher rate of people that found sound annoying at the higher end, which you can hear. It’s still library whisper quiet but you absolutely can hear it at the high 40 decibel level. I think I was 12 or 14 percent that described that if they were closer to the 50-decibel range were more likely to be annoyed by the sound. I don’t think that annoyance is a health effect. I think it is a real thing. I think to the extent that people say annoyance leads to cardiovascular effects and hypertension and so forth. I would say it does sometimes. In this particular case it did not because investigators were looking at those very things. So when we looked under the hood of that Health Canada reported that actually among the people annoyed by the noise the highest explanation was that the noise annoyance was that they were concerned for personal safety. If I think that television over there is radiating a signal that is causing me heart disease or cancer every time I see that tv on its going to really bug me. If it’s just entertainment and who cares if it’s on then I’m less likely to be annoyed by it. There is a group of people, if you’re noise intolerant or if you have unrealistic worry about turbines causing health effects then hearing it will cause you to be bothered by it. The important point Is that’s it. There wasn’t all of those other health issues. In my mind it is a really clean story of no health effect, but I just want to Throw that out because it is an important thing to consider.

If wind turbines are placed 1300 feet from a residence and it keeps people awake at night. Does that affect their health and wellbeing?

Dr. Ellenbogen: If it did keep them awake at night, then it would. 1300ft with modern turbines, I don’t see anything hitting above 50 decibels. Remember that’s how loud it gets. If you have a wall in the bedroom that drops it 15 decibels and close the window 20 decibels. That’s like pin drop quiet. If that’s keeping you up at night, I think you need a sleep doctor. The wind turbine is not the primary problem. I don’t mean to sound dismissive. Noise induced sleep disruption is a serious thing. I take it very seriously. Its what I’ve done for most my life. If you’re really high noise sensitive, I don’t think that fair to put on the turbine.

Dr. Ellenbogen: That’s great! I’ll have to look it up. It’s a mouthful. I found it through my medical school library. I don’t know if it’s public, but I can share it with you, and you can share it with anyone. It’s called the “Health Effects of 72 hours of Simulated Wind Turbine Infrasound a Double Blinded Randomized Crossover Study in Noise Sensitive Healthy Adults”. I’m ready to die with that title but it’s there. That’s what it is. That is why Matt Marshall in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives in 2023. It was published just a few weeks ago. Frankly it’s the best study I’ve seen in a long time.

Study Dr. Ellenbogen Referenced

100 people a day are killed in auto accidents a day. How many people near windmills have been killed ever by falling blades or ice?

Dr. Ellenbogen: That’s easy. It’s zero. They just don’t cause that kind of health problems. There are some 70,000 wind turbines spinning in the United States. To my there has never been a single example of a person injured let alone killed in that manner. Unless someone wants to correct me on that.

Dr. Ellenbogen: Over 70,000. Some of them are old and if they are in Texas or something they aren’t going to have ice throw. Even among the ones here, if this was an issue you would know.

Rand: I tried to mention this in my presentation. The supervisors will need to approve a successorship or change in ownership. It will also be detailed in Taylor County’s decommissioning plan.

Rand: We are really at the beginning of this renewable energy phase In Iowa. What we know about decommissioning, I guess we’ve had a lot of projects around 10 years. What we know about decommissioning and repowering is still in the early stages. It has largely been associated in Iowa with Mid-American. It is repowering some of their early wind energy projects. They’ve had 1128 decommissioned turbine blades from 4 different wind projects, and they have gone back to recycling repurposed projects. There are a couple vendors that are urging, its another reasoning why I mentioned a decommissioning policy might be reopened every 5 years because what decommissioning provides for is not only the net cost of taking turbines down but you get to subtract on recovery costs and the recycling components.

What happens if tax credits cease and the company dissolves? The account doesn’t go into landowners name until year 17. What happens if the company dissolves before that year. Who will make sure it happens?

Rand: What assures it happens is the bond itself. You don’t have to be concerned about that owner because the policy itself has provided for succession or change. It is guaranteed by the financial instrument absent the financial capacity or ability of the person who actually owns the instrument at that time. Its in the bond. 

Not only remember when I talked about decommissioning protecting the public generally the lease agreements themselves have additional protection.

Jarrod: No. It’s a private agreement. I’m not aware and I don’t think the government has any interest in regulating, but I could be wrong on that. As far as a fair market value, we always encourage landowners to ask around. We are able to see competitors from time to time. At Apex what we don’t do is we don’t give someone a better deal than someone else. We in our lease a most favored nation clause. They have to be the same deal. We have changed terms in our leases after the fact then we have to do what they call a lease amendment campaign. You go get all of your landowners and it’s more favorable than the one they signed. I encourage you, like anything, if you are making financial decisions long term, I would encourage you to ask around.

Do the turbines contract to the heirs of the land?

Jarrod: Yes. Its whatever entity owns the property.

Jarrod: The first one is 1.1 times the tip height or 1500 feet whichever is greater for non-participants. For participants its 1250 ft or 1.1 times the tip height, whichever is greater. A mile from state and federal parks.

Rand: Windmill Lake, Sands Timber, Wilson Lake and Bedford Reservoir all one mile back. All state parks and federal parks a mile back and all other parks a half a mile.

What about occupied structures?

Jarrod: That would be 1500 ft or 1.1 times the tip height. Whichever is greater.

Jarrod: They are consistent with industry standards.

Rand: I did take the opportunity to read through a copy of your Taylor County Ordinance 37. It’s 10 pages long. It was signed into law after a public hearing after publication February 27, 2020. Your ordinance is what I would characterize as more modern than our ordinances around the state. Some are 10 years old now and such. I found it very thoughtful and complete.

Rita: How much say do we have in location of a turbine? I think you have to look at that as a participating versus non-participating.

Jarrod: Sure. We will start with the participating. One thing we do is go through site review process. So we come up with the best design we can come up with and set up at a fairground near by to meet with you. You will receive an exhibit showing where we plan on putting the turbines. It’s an opportunity for landowners to come and discuss it with the team. If there’s tile there or something we didn’t pick up previous siting, it’s a good opportunity to discuss that.

Nonparticipating landowners are protected by the ordinance.

Jarrod: I’m not sure I’m qualified to answer that. I know its local government and they have the right to change it.

They had bad experience with construction. We have experienced the "village" that is built for cement hauling. In fact, it was 1/3 of a mile from our home. Hundreds of trucks a day went by our home.  Two bridges were broken, and we bottomed out in our vehicles on one of the roads. What do you do differently and if we asked participants on your past projects would they agree?

Curtis: Yes they would. What we can do differently is the location of the batch plant. We will build batch plant, its not an existing batch plant, so we actually build the batch plant within the location of the project. So we are look very closely at the batch plant to try to minimize the effect of people that live on that road or nearby.

Can you speak to the safety of wind turbines on the surrounding community? What is the safe distance from a lightning strike or fire. We had some say 3,000 ft and we only have 1500 ft setbacks from a house.

I would say a safe distance would be the tip height. So be at 650-550ft away for a turbine fire. Also on the safety. In Charlottesville Virginia, we have a remote-controlled center that monitors all our wind farms. The normal working day for the guys on site is Monday-Friday 7 AM – 4 PM. Then there’s always on call crews. Our remote operations desk monitors all the wind farms in the off hours, so if there’s a problem they call out the techs or manager. If there’s an ice event where all the blades get covered in ice Apex’s standard operation it to shut them off. When the blades are covered in ice they wont be making power anyway plus the extra weight on the blades is hard on the drivetrains. We just make the educated decision to shut them down.

Jarrod: One of the things we would do, right, is shut them down. It’s a very smooth process and control it to a large extent. Its important for people to understand it isn’t terribly common.

Jarrod: Zero

Is there training for local fire departments offered?

No. We don’t train any of the local fire departments. The turbine technicians are trained to self-rescue. We do work with the local EMS for emergency drills.

Jarrod: The fire department is not expected to climb the turbine.

Meagan: I think Jarrod touched on this earlier. Its really early and we are just not sure what the technology will be. It changes from week to week, which is surprising. The technology is moving really quickly and we will look at a lot of different options when the time comes.

Meagan: It’s dependent on the technology. Generally, they are about 120 meters. The tip height is usually about 650 ft.

What is the length of time to contrast each tower?

Curtis: Typical construction is 9-12 months, but building an individual tower the tower foundation has to cure for 28 days. Then you can stack the base on it. Then there is grout. The grout has to cure for 5 days. Then you can sack the turbine out. You can sack it out in 2-3 days now.

Does species of concern include humans?

Why are they surveying the land that’s not signed up in the project?

Will you be able to provide a copy of your slides?

Jarrod: We will discuss it after.

Dr Ellenbogan: Infra sound from a turbine gets about 70 decibels give or take. This Australia Study pushed it to 90 because there have been measurements at 90. They wanted to exceed any of the sound pressure levels that you might experience. Keep in mind that even that extreme position is several orders of magnitude below the perception of human hearing or feeling. Even the high experiment at 90 decibels, which is at or above what a turbine usually does, is significantly more than what you can heal or feel. I just want to clarify one thing about the injury stuff. Farming is dangerous. Construction is dangerous. It’s not that nobody has been injured by wind turbines. Its nobody in the community. No landowner. Signed or unsigned. Its people doing the construction. I don’t track those. They don’t report them to me. I understand construction must be done safely, but things happen. For landowners, participating or not, those people there are none. People assembling them have.

What if the sound issue isn’t a health issue but a disruption issue? Is this something the turbine companies do not value? If you lived in peace and quiet your whole life and the sound or turbines from 1500 ft disturb you, are you not worth the consideration?

Dr. Ellenbogan: I don’t think that’s a health question. I think that’s a peace and tranquility question so Ill leave that to Apex.

Jarrod: So, I think I could speak to the annoyance piece potentially. Again, going back to how we design turbines. Its science based. Our setbacks and the county’s setbacks are science based. They are based on the work Dr. Ellenbogen does and his colleagues. I think it’s really important. It’s not just a number we pull out of the air. The safety piece, we especially recovering wind turbine technicians, safety is huge to us. We don’t want to cause harm.

Jarrod: This question has been posed to agronomists. The footprint of a turbine is small, 20ft across. The one whole entire turbine. Corn roots at about 6ft. That 20ft across that pedestal would be all that would be impacted.

Are you ever concerned about the "neighbors" - the ones who are non-participants? Where do they fall in the process? What happens of they are 1500 ft from? Are the notified? 

Yes, we aspire to be good neighbors and contribute positively to the community.  If a landowner chose to not participate in the project, they have also indicated that they do not wish to participate in the design process.  Proposed turbine locations are included in the permit application which is accessible to the public.

Yes. Participation in the project is voluntary, and we honor the decision of landowner whether or not they participate in the project.

What plans do you have in place to work with non-participating landowners? Would you be willing to put up fewer turbines in order to respect those that dont want them by your homes? Would you be willing to put in a larger setback on your own accord?

It’s important to understand that leases are private agreements between landowners and the project.  If a landowner chose to not participate, we honor that decision and will design and build the project in adherence to the county’s requirements and Apex’s internal standards which are designed to minimize impacts. 

What is the design schedule? When will the location of project components be known? 

We are currently gathering meteorological data and conducting studies that will inform design and location of components.  We’d like to give a hard date, but it’s largely dependent on the data that we’re still acquiring. 

What if the government stops the tax credits? Will you still continue to pay as you have?

Assuming the production tax credit (PTC) is the subject of this question: All domestic energy sources receive government incentives to help promote investment in our country’s energy security.  The PTC provides a tax credit for the power produced from a wind farm, which in turn helps reduce energy prices for consumers.  Lease payments will continue to be paid regardless of the status of the PTC per the requirements of the lease.

With the ordinance and 180 days, when does the time start? Is it when the contract is signed or when the supplies start showing up. 

We’re unsure what the 180 days in this question is referring to.  Please reach out to a member of the Black Maple team so we can answer this question.

Can you use white lights on top of the turbines to be less visual for people around them? What is the life of the turbine? Why do the blades look dirty? 

The FAA lights on a turbine are required to be red per the FAA.  There is relatively new technology called Aircraft Detection Lighting System (ADLS) that will enable the red FAA lights to only turn on when an aircraft is detected.  However, it is ultimately up to the FAA whether ADLS is approved for a given project. 

Turbine components may need to be replaced or repaired periodically, including some of the larger components such as blades, gearboxes, and generators, but the overall lifespan of the turbines themselves is 25 years or more.

Good question! Each blade has its own system that enables it to change its “pitch” or angle to maximize its ability to capture wind.  Each blade has gears, bearings, motors, controllers, etc…  The blades are driven by either an electric motor or a hydraulic system.  Occasionally a seal on a bearing or in the hydraulic system can deteriorate, which can cause a little oil or grease to get on the outside of the blades.  The dirty appearance is due to the oil or grease collecting dirt and dust. 

Did you pull out of the Ohio project? Does flicker only apply to inhabited structures? What is the setback for eagles? 

Apex has multiple projects in Ohio. Please reach out to a member of the Black Maple team so we can answer this question. 

Apex conducts a shadow flicker study for each project, whether it’s a regulatory requirement.  Special consideration is given to inhabited structures. 

There is not a hard and fast setback from eagles nests.  Part of the development process is understanding not only which species are in an area, but how they use the area.  With that information, Apex develop mitigation plans in collaboration with various agencies such as US Fish and Wildlife.

Will questions submitted online be addressed?