Wind Turbines to Help Rural Townships: Three Wyoming County Municipalities to Reap Dividends

Nov 22 - The Times Leader (Wilkes-Barre, Pa.)

A wind-turbine project spread across several southern Wyoming County municipalities is on track to be installed by 2010 at the latest.

"There's nothing set yet. We're hopeful for this upcoming April, if all goes well," said Kevin Davis, BP Alternative Energy's project manager. "If not this April ... it could be 2010."

For about a year and a half BP has been negotiating with Noxen to install 35 wind turbines on South Mountain as part of a larger 87-turbine project that includes Eaton, Forkston and Washington townships.

Up to 17 turbines will be in Eaton Township, and the remainder will be in Forkston. The company has already received approval from the townships and the county, Davis said. A site in Washington Township is proposed for a switching station; a permitting hearing is upcoming, Davis said.

The rural townships will experience a distinct financial boost for perhaps the next 25 years, which is the usual lifespan of a turbine. The townships have already received $2,500 per turbine in permitting fees. For Noxen, that $87,500 equaled nearly half of the township's annual budget, said township Supervisor Carl Shook.

The township stands to bank another $50,000 when construction begins on the first turbine because the township is being "more impacted" by construction traffic, Davis said. In lieu of taxes, the townships with turbines each will receive $1,000 annually per megawatt of energy capacity installed in them, he said.

The company now is performing bore-hole testing at the proposed turbine sites to help design foundations, he said.

The project still requires a pollution-discharge permit and a state permit to allow transmission wires to cross wetlands, Davis said. Construction won't impact wetlands because the transmission-line towers will be built to avoid them, and box-culvert bridges will be built over them wherever any crossings are necessary.

The roughly nine-mile transmission path chosen among those proposed was the most direct possible to a substation at the Procter and Gamble plant in Mehoopany, where the power will enter the electricity distribution system, Davis said.

All landowners along the path have approved, he said.

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