March 7, 2007
Kansas
Kansas
As expected, the application for a wind farm southwest of Hays was filed Monday.
That was the filing timetable that was needed to allow for a public hearing on the conditional-use permit being requested by CPV Wind Hays, the developer of the project. That hearing will be at 7 p.m. March 28, but its location will change from its normal venue and instead will be in the main courtroom at the Ellis County Courthouse.
Zoning administrator Dale Wing this morning was just working his way through the 2-inch thick filing but said it appears that details he requested were included.
The wind farm essentially had gone dormant until late last year when engineers started combing the countryside, detailing the area for possible development as a site for location of wind turbines.
Those turbines, according to project manager Krista Jo Gordon, would be about 400 feet tall. There could be as many as 129 towers in the project area, located southwest of Hays.
CPV has nearly 10,000 acres of land under lease for the development.
That leasing agreement was reached several years ago, when CPV’s predecessor, Distributed Generation Systems, was pursuing the area at a time with KCP L, which was looking for wind energy. The Kansas City-based utility instead constructed its site near Spearville in southwest Kansas.
Gordon said Monday’s filing reiterated that no electricity from the proposed farm has been sold. The filing offered few new details from what already had been known.
Turbines would located at least 1,000 feet away from any household, as required by the county’s zoning regulations.
Despite that, the filing said that several landowners that live in the area want “to voluntarily reduce the setback requirement between turbines and their individual homes in order to allow a greater portion of their land to be used for the placement of wind turbines.”
Landowners on whose land the turbines are located on would receive a percentage of the sales of electricity from the turbines. Although it’s unknown how much each landowner would get, earlier discussions suggested the amount might range from $5,000 to $7,000.
In its filing, CPV generally detailed the area where the turbines would be located and the routes that would be traveled by the trucks hauling the turbines. For the most part, turbine parts would arrive via Interstate 70 and travel down U.S. Highway 183 Bypass to Golf Course Road. From there, they will travel to Yocemento Road where the turbines generally would be located.
By Mike Corn
Hays Daily News
5 March 2007
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2007/03/07/developer-files-application-in-ellis-county-for-wind-farm/