The state of Iowa is suing a Washington state company and its executives for allegedly dumping tons of old wind-turbine blades around Iowa, in violation of the state’s solid-waste laws.

The lawsuit alleges that over the past seven years, Global Fiberglass Solutions has failed to properly dispose of decommissioned wind-turbine blades and stockpiled them at multiple locations across Iowa.

The lawsuit, filed in Iowa District Court for Jasper County, seeks payment of civil penalties and a court injunction to prevent any additional violations of the state’s solid-waste laws.

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Global Fiberglass Solutions and its CEO, Donald Lilly, are named as defendants in the case, as is Ronald Albrecht, one of Global’s corporate officers. The defendants could not be reached for comment.

The lawsuit claims that General Electric, which provides parts and equipment for wind turbines, and MidAmerican Energy, which owns wind turbines in Iowa, each hired Global in 2017 to recycle their decommissioned wind-turbine blades.

MidAmerican and General Electric paid Global “millions of dollars,” the lawsuit alleges, to cut up, transport, and recycle the blades. Typically, such blades are about 170 feet long and weigh roughly 16 tons.

Rather than recycle the blades, the lawsuit claims, Global instead dumped roughly 1,300 of them at four locations around the state: Newton, Atlantic and a site in Ellsworth that was used to store blades that were originally dumped in Fort Dodge.

At one time, the lawsuit alleges, there were about 868 blades stored at the Newton site, which was a parking lot for the former Maytag factory. In Ellsworth, Global allegedly dumped 400 blades in a field, directly on the ground. In Atlantic, 22 blades were dumped in a field, directly on the ground, according to the lawsuit.

State says company never posted bond ensuring blades would be recycled

In 2018, according to the lawsuit, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources began fielding complaints about the Newton site. In 2020, the department sent Global a notice of violation related to the sites in Fort Dodge and Newton, indicating the blades were not being recycled as claimed and had simply been discarded. Later that year, a similar notice was issued regarding the Ellsworth site.

In December 2020, the lawsuit alleges, Global agreed to a consent order obligating the company to “take a number of concrete steps to purchase, install, and commence using recycling equipment” to process a certain percentage of the blades according to a series of deadlines.

The company also was required to post a $2 million surety bond to defray state expenses should the DNR be forced to remove and dispose of the blades because of Global’s lack of compliance with the consent order.

The DNR then agreed to extend the deadline for posting the bond until April 1, 2021.

Global never posted the bond, according to the lawsuit, and so the DNR ordered Global to stop accumulating wind-turbine blades in Iowa and to remove all of the blades scattered at the disposal sites. Global didn’t comply with that order and in July 2021 the matter was referred to the Iowa attorney general’s office for legal action.

The state’s lawsuit against Global was filed thie week of Sept. 22, three years after that referral. It seeks a civil penalty of up to $5,000 for each day the company was out of compliance with Iowa’s solid-waste laws.

State records indicate MidAmerican has removed and properly disposed of the blades once located at the Ellsworth site, while General Electric has removed the blades from Atlantic and Newton — a task that was completed in June this year.

Global and its executives “dumped and abandoned 1,300 decommissioned wind-turbine blades in stockpiles across the state,” Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird said in a news release.  “We are taking action to hold them accountable.”

Find this story at Iowa Capital Dispatch, which is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions: kobradovich@iowacapitaldispatch.com.

STORM LAKE, Iowa (KCAU) — Every year, just before winter, Iowa DOT snowplow drivers are put to the test in a simulation to freshen up their skills.

The Iowa DOT contracts with L3Harris Technologies, a company that operates a variety of simulations, to get drivers behind the wheel of a snowplow without being on the road.

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“The seat that the operator sits in is very realistic in the fact that if you are drifting over to the edge of the road and hitting rumble strips, your seat is going to shake,” Craig Bargfrede with the Iowa DOT said. “The controls in the simulator are very, very similar to what you will actually see in the cab of one of our trucks.”

Over the course of two hours, drivers are put through a variety of simulations pf scenarios they could encounter this winter.

“Large areas where high volume traffic, where you have cars all around the truck to rural roads that, you know, you only have two lane type roads… they’ll throw in fatigue scenarios,” Bargfrede said.

Once the person finishes their simulation, the instructor informs them how they did and what they need to improve on.

“Every operator that comes through there is given a score, obviously, but those that may end up on the lower end of the spectrum are just operators that when we provide this feedback to the garage supervisors that maybe trigger some remedial training and the actual truck itself and go through some additional training,” Bargfrede said.

DOT officials say this training has worked wonders over the years, ensuring their drivers are prepared for what’s to come.

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“The gist of this is to get our folks back into the winter mindset,” Bargfrede said. “We do some refreshers on winter driving skills all in a very confined, controlled environment, where, you know, mistakes can be made and learned from and it’s better to do it in that simulator than out on the actual roadway.”

Bargfrede also wanted to remind people to give plows space once snow arrives to help prevent any accidents.

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