MANSFIELD — In Mansfield, Illinois, about 20 miles northwest of Champaign, wind turbines are scattered across a barren field right off I-74.
Standing more than 600 feet tall, these are the largest turbines in the state. And if it were up to some residents in Piatt County, they wouldn’t be here, said Jerry Edwards, Piatt County vice chairman.
“I’m just going to say the biggest thing is people say, I don’t want to look at the things,” Edwards said.
He said people think the turbines are ugly. They sometimes flash at night, when they detect an airplane nearby; and during the day, the sunlight reflects off the blades into people’s homes. On top of that, the company Apex Clean Energy, promised an economic boom to the community, but Edwards said that has yet to happen.
Illinois has set a goal of getting to 100% clean energy by 2050 as a part of the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act, which defines clean energy as carbon-free sources, including nuclear, solar and wind.
But Edwards, and others in rural communities, aren’t too thrilled about this initiative.
Many people in rural communities oppose the construction of wind farms as a part of the clean energy transition in Illinois, according to a recent study led by researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Wind energy is an important piece of the Illinois power grid, said former U of I graduate student Shannon Anderson, a lead author on the study. But the state could have been much more conscientious of rural communities in efforts to achieve its clean energy goals.
“One of the critical questions… is doing things quickly versus doing things right,” Anderson said. The state “might have been overlooking some of the ways that it could have been doing things with a little bit more of an eye for procedural justice.”
Wind farm construction continues despite opposition
The Piatt County Board initially voted down the wind farm construction project in March 2023. Voters in the east-central Illinois county of about 16,000 rejected wind farms in general, in an advisory referendum that the county board had placed the following month (1,498 against wind farms to 623 in favor).
“We voted it down once. Then shortly after that, the state came in,” Edwards said, referring to a state law that passed in 2023 that limits the zoning authority of rural communities when it comes to the construction of wind and solar farms.
As a result, last fall, the Piatt County Board reversed its decision — voting 4-to-2 without Edwards’ support – to ultimately approve the project. Construction is complete and the wind turbines should be operating soon, according to Apex Clean Energy spokesperson Josh Hartke.
Edwards said doesn’t see many benefits to the county so far.
“There’s just not the money coming in that they promised,” he said.
Hartke said the money will come: Once the turbines are up and running, the company will be the biggest taxpayer in the county by a factor of 10.
“We’re going to be paying multiple millions of dollars every year to Piatt County schools, to Piatt County roads,” he said.
Edwards said he’s not seeing many new jobs coming to Piatt County. But Hartke notes that the construction project has been providing hundreds of union jobs, prioritizing workers from Piatt County.
Once the work is complete, there will be an additional eight employees hired on-site “that we hope are folks out of Piatt County,” Hartke said.
Rural residents want a say in what happens to their land
In addition to concerns about the landscape and noise, some rural residents in Illinois feel there’s been a lack of communication from energy developers, according to U of I researchers.
Many communities have voiced their opposition to this legislation by voting for zoning restrictions on wind and solar farms, said McKenzie Johnson, an assistant professor in the U of I department of natural resources and environmental sciences and a co-author of the study.
Johnson said it’s problematic that the Illinois government passed the 2023 public act limiting zoning authority in rural communities.
“You can’t simply take away someone’s ability to participate in their political system simply to achieve a goal,” Johnson said. “Illinois made the decision that trying to achieve the climate goals that it set under the framework of CEJA was more important than ensuring equal political participation of all citizens.”
Anderson said people in rural communities who were impacted by the public act told her they want to have a bigger say in what happens to their land.
“They’re reaching for power,” Anderson said. “They’re reaching for a seat at the table. They’re reaching for something where they can become part of that conversation.”
One way or another, the state and local communities have to figure this out, said Christine Nannicelli, senior campaign representative with the grassroots environmental group Sierra Club Illinois.
“Wind energy is one of the most critical renewable resources for cost-effective and reliable clean energy,” she said. “So environmental groups that lobby for clean energy laws need to work on compromising with rural communities when it comes to the construction of wind farms.
“I think one of our biggest challenges here is figuring out how to nurture and foster really productive, healthy and common sense discussion around what that integration looks like,” Nannicelli added. “We all need a resilient power grid. The lights need to stay on.”