photo by: Austin Hornbostel/Journal-World

Members of the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission listen to county planning staff during a meeting on Monday, Jan. 22, 2024.

Just after midnight on Tuesday, the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission reached a consensus on a revised set of rules for wind energy projects in Douglas County.

The Planning Commission approved the revised rules by a 6-3 vote, with one key modification: that setback distances from non-participating property owners be set at 2,500 feet from the property line, along with other technical changes based on discussion from earlier in the night. The vote came nearly six hours into the Planning Commission’s Monday meeting.


Planning commissioners Sharon Ashworth and Prasanth Duvvur and Planning Commission Chair Gary Rexroad were opposed, and that was based on a change from the proposed draft that recommended 1,500 feet as the minimum setback distance from a non-participating landowner’s property line. That change was initiated in the first place because a majority of planning commissioners were concerned that the shorter setback distance would result in a safety risk for neighbors.

Planning Commissioner Charlie Thomas was one person in that group. Thomas said during the process of crafting the rules, he’s seen evidence that wind turbine blades can throw ice as far as 1,700 feet away from a tower structure, and an incident that occurred at a wind farm in Marshall County has shown that fragments from damaged turbine blades can blow as far as 2,100 feet away. For those reasons, Thomas said he wasn’t comfortable sticking with setbacks of 1,500 feet or less in the regulations.

“Those two things alone, I think, are enough reason to say we would be putting the health, safety and general welfare of Douglas County citizens at risk if we chose 1,500 feet,” Thomas said. “I can think of no reasonable, logical explanation that we would want regulations that we know put our citizens at risk, and 1,500 feet absolutely does that.”

Setbacks of 2,500 feet, Thomas said, provide a “very small margin of error.” Planning Commissioner Mike Kelso agreed. So did Planning Commissioner Pedro Borroto, who said he was more interested in protecting residents.

Duvvur disagreed about whether those concerns should be a key factor when it comes to setbacks, though. Duvvur said with tens of thousands of wind turbines having been located in Kansas, issues like turbine failures would be in the news much more often, but Borroto later contended that those incidents might not be as publicized because they’re taking place in less densely populated areas.

But Ashworth said it’s not just Kansas but the entire world that has some experience dealing with wind turbines, and there also is not an influx of reports from news outlets abroad about a high frequency of turbine-related accidents. Ashworth said she was in favor of the 1,500-foot setback distance, and added that a turbine would still need to be moved back from a property line if it doesn’t meet the noise and shadow flicker requirements from the minimum setback distance.

“… I’m not some incomprehensible monster for saying ‘I’m going to take that risk with somebody else,'” Ashworth said. “Because I don’t think that’s true. There’s no way to take a probability of something going wrong to zero, and I don’t want to feel backed into that kind of corner and feel like I’m putting people’s lives at risk. I don’t think that’s fair.”

Thomas, Kelso, Duvvur and Rexroad made up the smaller ad hoc group formed earlier in the process to tackle crafting the regulations outside the group’s usual meeting times. Rexroad said the subcommittee took steps to solve issues like ice throw and debris, plus others like noise levels, by building in “very rigorous” mitigation requirements instead of just setting longer setback distances.

Rexroad said a setback of 2,500 feet or more would “force a much larger regulatory footprint” in order to build a project, the largest reason he is in favor of shorter setback distances.

“I sleep well, I can look in the mirror and say at 1,500 feet we’ve mitigated risk,” Rexroad said. “I believe so — I believe we have, and that’s why I’m supporting that number.”

Other planning commissioners who supported longer setback distances included Jane Eldredge, who said the group had a duty to take into account the county’s population density, and Chelsi Hayden, who specifically cited concerns about firefighters’ ability to get close enough to a fire incident happening too near a neighboring home.

Planning Commissioner David Carttar said he doesn’t see the issue as “black and white,” and setting a specific setback distance that ensures zero probability of risk is “impossible.” Carttar said it was a difficult decision, and he’d probably vote for the group’s consensus.

“I find this the painful outcome of a deliberative process that I hope bears fruit,” Carttar said. “I’m not terribly happy with this particular motion, but I support it, and I hope it gives the governing body an opportunity to do something good for the county.”

The group also, more briefly, discussed setback distances from the county’s borders and from public cemeteries and churches, from which members of the public have cited a desire for setbacks of up to 1 mile. Thomas was the only planning commissioner who didn’t support keeping the same setback distance values for those locations as for any other occupied structure. As for setbacks from the county’s borders, those distances will also be set at 2,500 feet.

As the Journal-World has reported, the revised rules establish substantially more rigorous application requirements and height and setback standards compared to the rules that have been on the books since 2016. With the Planning Commission’s approval, the revised regulations can now move on to the final step of the process, which is another public hearing at the Douglas County Commission. That body is responsible for making the final decision on the new rules.