Company addresses county concerning wind farm
Macomb, Ill. — Representatives of Freeport-based EcoEnergy briefed the McDonough County Board’s finance committee Wednesday on their desire to locate a $400 million set of wind farms in McDonough and Warren counties.
“We’re starting to get interest from local landowners and the wind resource looks pretty good,” said Curt Bjurlin of EcoEnergy.
He said the company is looking at setting up 134 wind turbines on towers 397 feet high.
Bjurlin said the company is looking at an area west of U.S. 67 and north of Sciota. He said many landowners have already signed a right of first refusal that puts the company first in line for a lease agreements.
Kim Pierce, executive director of the Macomb Area Economic Development Corp, said such a project would generate significant property tax revenues for both counties. She said potential McDonough County sites are already located in the county enterprise zone, and that Warren County will extend the Monmouth Enterprise Zone into those sites selected in that county.
Pierce said EcoEnergy would receive state sales tax exemption as a benefit of being located in the enterprise zones. Bjurlin said more than 200 construction jobs would be created by the project, and as many as 20 wind technicians would be hired as permanent employees.
Bjurlin said there are 67 wind turbines in place in the rural area near Freeport to convert kinetic energy into electricity. Pierce said McDonough and Warren county representatives will be given the opportunity to examine that wind farm in April or May. She estimated construction could not begin on the McDonough-Warren project for at least a year.
“We’re looking at a fairly long way to go before we know what the construction schedule might be,” Bjurlin added.
The wind turbines would be located 1,000 feet apart in rows that are one mile apart, Bjurlin said. He said they are usually built along farm fence lines.
In other business, the committee voted to recommend to the County Board a $37,000 proposal to rewire and provide better cable connections for all computers in the McDonough County Courthouse. Committee Chairwoman Alice Henry said the current system is 15-years old and computer speeds are so slow that employees in the property tax assessment office are having difficulty getting their work done.
By Patrick Stout
15 January 2009
Tags: Wind power, Wind energy
Some possibly related stories:
The copyright of this article is owned by the author or publisher indicated. Its availability here constitutes a "fair use" as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law as well as in similar "fair dealing" exceptions of the copyright laws of other nations, as part of National Wind Watch's effort to advance understanding of the environmental, social, scientific, and economic issues of large-scale wind power development. For more information, click here.
