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Illinois Local Lobbies for Wind Power Zoning

November 6, 2009

Located on a natural ridge with plentiful wind, Winnebago County, Ill. offered an opportunity for unemployed members of the building trades to get back to work on green energy projects.  But zoning regulations needed to be relaxed to keep the building of wind power turbines from getting seized up in bureaucratic red tape.

So Rockford, Ill., Local 364—located about 80 miles northwest of Chicago—and the county’s building trades partnered with Navitas Energy, a wind power developer, to lobby the Winnebago County Board to give the green light to green power.

Above Right: Freshly erected training tower will prepare members of Rockford, Ill., Local 364 for new wind energy projects.

“Our local led the charge to approve zoning amendments,” says Local 364 Business Manager Darrin Golden, who encouraged 25 out of 70 local union members who reside in Winnebago County to attend a hearing prior to the board approving zoning changes.  The amendments will make it harder for environmental groups to delay new turbines by making exaggerated claims on  their negative impact on migratory birds. 

Navitas will try to “fast track” the wind energy project, says Golden, creating about 100 construction jobs for members of his local and Rockford’s outside construction Local 196.
Three hundred turbines are already in operation in Local 364’s jurisdiction, all of them installed by the two locals.

In a story published in the Rockford Register Star, Golden said, “The simplest way to put it is it’s about jobs.”  The construction trades, he added, “are almost in the same shape as they were in the 1980s.”

Golden hopes that his alliance with the National Electrical Contractors Association in building a wind turbine trainer to familiarize electricians with their operation will move his local into the forefront of green construction.