County calls 
emergency meeting

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PRINCETON — The Bureau County Board met in an emergency meeting for about 45 minutes Friday evening to discuss ongoing problems with a local wind farm road agreement.

According to the notice issued on the meeting, the emergency meeting was called to discuss pending litigation involving Iberdrola Renewables Inc. and the Providence Heights wind farm.

Also attending Friday’s meeting at the Bureau County Courthouse were Bureau County Highway Engineer John Gross, Bureau County Assistant State’s Attorney Donna Engels and attorney Sheryl Kuzma, who is representing the county in the matter.

The county board took no action after coming out of closed session.

Absent from Friday’s meeting were board members Ralph Anderson, Marsha Lilley, Mike Maynard, Bob McCook, Laura Rose and Marc Wilt.

As reported earlier in the Bureau County Republican, the county board claims Iberdrola Renewables is in default of its road agreement to repair county roads damaged by construction of the Providence Heights wind farm near Tiskilwa. Negotiations between the county and Iberdrola have not reached a mutually acceptable conclusion.

The Dixon-based civil engineering firm of Willett, Hofmann and Associates Inc. has assessed $1.9 million in road damage near the Providence Heights wind farm. According to the study, Iberdrola Renewables is responsible for $1.3 million of those damages. However, Iberdrola has not agreed to that assessment, attorney Sheryl Kuzma stated.

Two smaller wind farms, AgriWind and Crescent Ridge 1, have also used the roads near the Providence Heights wind farm during their own construction projects, Kuzma said. Those two companies have agreed to their road damage assessments stated in the Willett Hofmann study, as part of their road agreements with Bureau County.

BCR reporter Neil Johnson contributed to this article.

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