If you are a friend on Facebook, you might have noticed some status updates this week about me filling out an application to be come a board member of our local utility company. I did get it finished and turned in, and while I probably made it more difficult than it needed to be, I wouldn’t be me if I had just slapped something together. I really wanted to tell them they should appoint me because I’m awesome, but apparently that wasn’t an appropriate answer.
For those of you who are wondering what I’m talking about: our city has it’s own municipal utility company. The city council appoints the board that oversees it, day to day operations are taken care of by a manager and a number of employees. What it means is that when I write my check to pay for my water and electricity: it goes to a local company managed by local people. If my power goes out, it is local linemen that are rushing to fix the problem. Several years ago, when we had a huge ice storm, we had power back (via the generators that our local utility owns and maintains) within hours. Surrounding communities, who get their power from a Big Corporate Utility Company, were without power for a WEEK. Before moving here, I’d never thought much about utility companies, as long as I had power, that’s all that mattered, but now that I’ve lived in a place with a municipal utility, I’d consider that a top priority if I were moving to a new community.
Not that we’re moving any time soon. Or ever.
I’m not sure if they’ll make a decision soon, or if it will be April before the council appoints the new board member, but I’ll be sure to let you know what happens.
On top of that Mark has been involved with an association of local landowners — and last night was the official presentation of the lease agreement from Wind Capital Group to the Tama County Landowners. Sometime in the next few years, I’ll start posting pictures of the massive Wind Energy Facility that will be taking over the view to the south of us. They have proposed a 300 megawatt project: we’ll be looking at 100 to 150 wind turbines cropping up in a 40,000 acre area to the south of the town we live in. The family farm is right in the middle of all of it. We won’t know for awhile whether or not we’ll actually have any turbines on the property that we own, or that is owned by the farm, but all of the landowners in the area that sign a lease will see benefits from the project for many years to come.
For perspective: the 300MW facility is estimated to have an annual production of power of 1 million kilowatt hours, enough to power 100,000 homes.
I just wish all of that energy could be turned into something that could be pumped straight into my body. I have been dragging this week…I’m sure it doesn’t have anything to do with staying up late to watch Olympic coverage…
